Crassus was a bastard, no arguments about that. Caesar too.

With that said, I would argue that even Caesar's minimum was a damn site more than the senate would have done had he not seized power. As an example, this was a senate that was so calcified that they refused to consider the matter of confirming Pompei's conquests- conquests that had already happened, mind you- because they were afraid Pompei would gain too much power. The senatorial faction that he faced had- multiple times- eschewed public order and common decency to kill agents acting for the people of Rome. Who had refused to consider the idea of Italian citizenship until the rest of the peninsula was literally in revolt.

The lesson most people take from Caesar is the one you are saying, 'beware of populists', and I get it. That is a reasonable lesson to take away. But I think there is a second lesson. Because the 'Republic', at that time, was anything but. The way the voting worked, lower class Romans had little say, and yet less once you account for the votes sold under Roman Patronage (sell your vote to a senator for a stipend, because slaves were doing all the work they would normally do). The tribune of the plebs, the office meant to ensure the lower classes had some say, had effectively been gutted. Income inequality was insane, and the senate was inactive.

So yes, people listened to someone who told them what they wanted to hear and followed him into proto-empire. But what, exactly, did they give up? A political voice they had already sold to keep food on the table? This, to me, is that second lesson- at a certain level of political malaise, the people will begin looking for someone- anyone- who can offer them a better way.