I was under the impression that Pendola had turned over a new leaf, though I didn't know he wrote a book about it, I may want to check that out. I want to say he was in school in California for public policy or urban planning, but I may be mistaken. I visited his blog page a while back, but for the life of me I can't recall the address off of the top of my head.
I also would tend to agre with your assessment of Madden from a personal standpoint, but for whatever reason, there are a decent size number of listeners in the talk formats that tend to like to listen to the radio just to be angry. Personally I have never gotten it (despite working in the field), I just never understood why people would listen to their radio just to be angry. That being said, if it works (and maybe it doesn't for Mark anymore, I haven't looked at the numbers for his particular daypart broken down by demographic) no need for me to reinvent the wheel, just understand that it turns and be content with that knowledge.
I too like Tunch and Wolf together, almost a local Mike and Mike, but a little more tolerable for my tastes. Not that Mike and Mike are bad, just like Tunch and Wolf better.
I threw the Cannon brothers in there at that time slot because they strike me as probably the best at handling updates as they come in, and in that slot is when you are going to get most of your score updates both locally and nationally. I may be mistaken, there may be better in the market in that role, but they strike me best as being able to handle it, though I would mind having Jim Colony do the actual sports/news breaks during that show.