Dennis Bailey - Once scored a hat-trick at Old Trafford and was definitely a success at The Gills. Not sure Rod Wallace was a failure he scored more goals per minutes played than anyone else in the championship in his first season and scored 12 a reasonable return, he was blighted by injury after that and forced to retire
Rod Wallace is a good shout. When he signed he probably had one good season left in him. Pity he spent most of it injured. For me the big name signing that worked was former (old) Division one Middlesboro stiker Dave Shearer. A class act in front of goal, just look at his goals to games played ratio (again would have been even better if the club could have kept him out of the local pubs and night clubs)...
To my mind the worst ex top flight player is Lomas by a country mile he was so bad for us that Stuart Thorogood was seen as an improvement! Whilst Wallace and Johnson were seen frustratingly infrequently, there was no doubting their quality when we did see them in the blue shirt. John Egan came from Sunderland and would be a hit, Guy Butters & Neil Smith started at Spurs both hits, and Gary Micklewhite played alot of top flight football at QPR and I would also consider him to be a success
I am not sure that those figures were that huge at the time there appeared to have been more money in the lower divisions then, now virtually nobody moves between lower championship, league 1 & league 2 teams for much of a fee, when The Gills signed Asaba and Taylor that was going rate for players of that quality. Pulis now keeps teams in the premier league on the some of the smallest budgets available I really don't think that there should be any questions about his ability as a manager.
Sorry I am on a roll now!! Ade Akinbiyi and Iwan Roberts both from Norwich - 1 hit 1 miss Steve Banks from West Ham - Hit Glenn Roeder a bit hit and miss Patrick Agyemang from the old Wimbledon - miss Trevor Aylott once of Chelsea - big miss Nicky Southall arrived for a 2nd time having played premier league at Bolton a hit Maybe the common factor is not where they came from but who signed them more hits signed by Pulis, Taylor and Hess than by our other managers.