The Juventus team that Conte made champions was Agnelli's doing. The sooner you accept this the better. The fact that they haven't lost a league ever since despite looking dreadful 6 out of 9 playing months just reinforces this. Not sure on the actual numbers now or the record, but Juventus in 2011-12 probably had the most cards (yellow + red) against their opponents. What we saw that year was an impressive refereeing recital.
And of course they picked up momentum. People are too quick to comment on Conte, but the real reason Juventus sucked before him was because they were explicitly holding out for investments until that season which was their stadium opener. And I wouldn't call their roster shit. Shittier than today, obviously yes, but no team was constructed this way. This is a mid 2010s type of team buidling where the ultra rich can afford essentially 2 rosters whilst their rivals can barely afford 1. This is what Bayern started doing at the same time (compare their 2010-11 roster with their 2015-16 roster for example), Real Madrid, Barcelona, Man City etc. The comparison should be against your peers.
Milan's team had Robinho, Muntari, Nocerino, Emanuelson, Abate, Ambrosini, Aquilani, Antonini and Bonera.... And they were actually a good team.
Our team had Nagatomo, Obi, Pazzini, Alvarez, Zarate, Poli, Forlan and we used Faraoni quite a lot... Our team wasn't really that bad though but obviously we could have done a lot better.
By the way, these are not just roster players, they were amongst the players with most minutes of both squads.
Now Juventus had Pirlo and Vidal as you said. Anyone doubting Vidal's quality from Leverkusen clearly does not understand how a very good player looks like. Letting go of Pirlo was a huge mistake by Milan. Then Juventus signed Lichtsteiner who was probably the 2nd best right back in Serie A the year before. Vucinic was a pretty good forward and carried Roma in the previous years when he had to. Chiellini started emerging as a top center back when until that season he was something between a left back and a center back. Barzagli coming back to Italy was also a good transfer. They also got Giaccherini who's had some excellent seasons with Cesena and everyone wanted to buy him at the time. Sure, they did have their flops or completely average players, but it's not like they were the 10th team of Italy in quality. They were on par with Inter and Milan and came over because of FIGC, their new stadium effect and the lack of interest of both Moratti and Berlusconi to set things straight.
Attributing all that to Conte and Marotta (ie the purely football part of Juventus) is naive and ignorant of the situation.
Now as for Conte himself as a coach, he's of course a rather good one. No one doubts his quality. His heart is what has been doubted. He's still the same person he always was. That does not change even with 11m a year.
10 years of FIF
