Another update. Forgot to use the "env" object instead of "page" object, as described in this post. This produced the humorous result of every post being authored by the first messageauthor on any given page. Here it is:
<#--Custom author component with new order: Avatar, rank, posts, kudos. Original author component XML is <component id="author"/>. On Reply page, defaults to Out-of-the-box author component. -->
<#if page.name?lower_case == "replypage" >
<@component id="author"/>
<#else>
<#assign messageAuthorId = env.context.message.author.id />
<#assign messageAuthorLogin = env.context.message.author.login />
<#assign avatarUrl = rest("/users/id/${messageAuthorId}/profiles/avatar/url").value />
<#assign kudosCount = rest("/users/id/${messageAuthorId}/kudos/received/count").value />
<#assign postCount = rest("/users/id/${messageAuthorId}/posts/count").value />
<#assign rankingName = rest("users/id/${messageAuthorId}/ranking/name").value />
<#assign profileUrl = "/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/${messageAuthorId}" />
<div class="lia-message-author-avatar">
<div class="custom-avatar-wrapper">
<div class="UserAvatar lia-user-avatar lia-component-common-widget-user-avatar">
<a class="UserAvatar lia-link-navigation" tabindex="-1" target="_self" id="link_39" href="${profileUrl}"><img class="lia-user-avatar-message" id="display" src="${avatarUrl}"></a>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="lia-message-author-username">
<span class="UserName lia-user-name">
<a class="lia-link-navigation lia-page-link lia-user-name-link" href="${profileUrl}">
<span class="">${messageAuthorLogin}</span>
</a>
</span>
</div>
<div class="lia-message-author-rank">${rankingName}</div>
<div class="lia-message-author-post-count" title="Number of posts by this author">
<table>
<tr><td class="fonticon"><i class="fa fa-comment"></i></td><td class="count">${postCount}</td></tr>
</table>
</div>
</tr>
<div class="lia-message-author-kudos-count" title="Number of votes received by this author">
<table>
<tr><td class="fonticon"><i class="fa fa-thumbs-up"></i></td><td class="count">${kudosCount}</td></tr>
</table>
</div>
</#if>