That's why I said "at first blush". Hoover made a number of steps in the right direction to mitigate the effects of the crash: that much is beyond question. He was also an administrator without peer-witness the relief work in Belgium and how he advanced day-to-day life as SecComm-but probably not the best executive / policy-setter. On the flip side, his name was a watchword for profound conservatism in the '30s, '40s, and even into the '50s (see, for example, in Inside USA, writing of the Dakotas, John Gunther (1947) said "South thinks that North is full of Bolsheviks, while North thinks that South is a preserve for all people to the right of Herbert Hoover."), although he became something of a Grand Old Man during the Eisenhower years, with memories fogged by the passage of time. Also, he had an unfortunate tendency to pick what proved to be the wrong side in some controversies (he favored isolationism in the late '30s/early '40s, was a mild supporter of Joe McCarthy, and called prohibition "a noble experiment", as three examples).
I'd suggest that had Hoover somehow gotten the nomination in 1920 instead of 1928 (and he was a viable if lesser candidate), he would have won (almost any GOP candidate would have) and would have done a competent, if not very good job--and the 1920s would have been notably different.
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