Allardyce is a fair point actually. I know it'll never be admitted on here, but Pardew is a charlatan and will be found out by the wider world soon enough.
It's complicated.
Benitez has no experience of the Championship and doesn't have a record of long term projects. He's suspect in the transfer market and favours a cautious approach which works in knock-out competitions and some foreign leagues but how will it fair in the knockabout 2nd tier of English football? Hard to say.
All that said, he's clearly a good manager, and definitely of a strata we'd not attract for quite some time. Nobody thought we'd get him to join in the first place, everyone thought he'd 100% go if we went down and many thought he'd go even if he had kept us up. He's proven that he can get teams promoted. He's got a reputation in the world (bar sunderland and Everton it seems

)that will attract players to join a club in the 2nd tier that may have not fancied a year out of the top flight. His cautious approach isn't so dissimilar from the style that Hughton used to stroll through the Championship last time.
End of the day we'd be f***ing stupid not to try and convince a manager of his ability and standing to stay. Unfortunately, Lee Charnley is f***ing stupid, otherwise we'd have never appointed McClaren or at least brought Benitez is earlier.