Pardew certainly bought better players than Benitez' has. McLaren had two players who're just about to appear in the Champions League final. Benitez is hardly a yes man, and his sides don't play turgid football.
Corrected your first sentence for you, and if you honestly believe he doesn’t play turgid football, then I have to assume you don’t watch them very often going by the number of times he simply parks the bus and ends up with 20 odd percent of the play.