Bruguera didn't play the attacking game Nadal does.. In my opinion, Bruguera's defensive game was just as good as Nadal's and I actually have the opinion that Bruguera's passing shots were better.. slightly though..
...he could DEFINITELY flatten it out though. Make no mistake about that. When Bruguera decided to flatten it out, he "hurt the ball" and "you won't see forehands hit bigger than that ANYWHERE" are two of the things I've heard coming out of McEnroe's mouth when Bruguera decided to let it out on the ball. INCREDIBLE racket head speed when he got angry and wanted to send a message with a shot. Bruguera's hit forehands as hard as any I've ever seen when he wanted to, just draw-dropping, crowd gasps for a second kind of power when he wanted to.
It's a mistake to think Bruguera only laid back defensively. He mixed it up more with the spins, power, and angles than Nadal. He would go for soft cutesy, finesse angles as a semi-regular mixup play in his baseline rallys. He would also make sure to periodically flatten it out big time every so often to keep opponents honest. Then he would also try to throw up HUGE moon balls the heights of which I've not seen ANY modern pro hit. I mean literally MOON balls where'd he just try to hit it as high as he possibly could with a minimum of pace, the kind of moon balls that'd make Arantxa proud, even envious. Then there was the standard hard and heavy Muster like baseline groundy. Bruguera gave opponents a wider array of DEGREE of spin than any player I've ever seen. His OPEN stance forehand for clay is also probably the best ever, once coined the "greatest clay court forehand ever" by Vilas. The reason is that it was an incredibly *efficient& yet effective shot on clay when he was pressed. He didn't have to necessarily wind up corkscrew style to get his forehand off the way Berasategui or Ferrero or Moya style "circle 8" forehands do. He'd just slide into shots and plant his racket foot parellel to the baseline, lean that incredibly slinky back of his back, and still be able to "whip it good" (remember that song? Catchy.). His forehand was like an accordion, basically the closest approximation to a tennis specialized, metal slinky basically. Also a very difficult shot to read, because it was so flick reliant. McEnroe said it best during the French final with Courier, Courier can't read where he's gonna go.
It was VERY unique technique, that I've not seen ANY other pro emulate. It's imo BY FAR one of the most ideosyncratic and difficult to emulate techniques there is. It's one of those strokes where it works for one player only, but wouldn't work for anyone else like Becker's INCREDIBLE deep knee bend and rocking motion on his serve, or Muster's incredibly MUSCLY way of standing on his backfoot and still able to rocket launch topspin ONE-handed backhands. Other people that would rip their shoulders out, you've got to be built like an ox to be able to get away with the way Muster would *routinely* against pro level pace and spin. Berasategui's INSANE wrist snap and ridiculously absurdly western grip on his forehand is another. Most players try to copy that and every ball they hit will land in the bottom of the net or they'll swing and miss completely or they'll frame the ball so violently they're wrist would feel like it's gonna fall off any minute.
Bruguera's forehand was optimized to slide into balls open stance in a way that no one else's ever has been. It was a shot that was specialized for clay, but imo, a poor adaptation on a firm surface for obvious reasons.
Bruguera played defensive more on average, but I've also seen him take the role of agressive baseliner too. He steamrolled Berasategui in the last set of their French final doing just that. Very defensive before that, and then bam he just turned it on and ran away with it.
I saw him play Byron Black on hard once, and realizing who he was playing, he recognized the best strategy was to just try and overpower him...so? That's what he did. He simply went into more of the Agassi mindset. He did have it in him, but he more so than most any top pro I've seen would fine tune how much spin vs. pace or finesse he was going to go for on a given day according to the opponent. Against Agassi on clay for example, he tried to mix in all of these things without a set pattern or rhythm to throw off Agassi's rhythm. It was to me a very obvious conscious decision. Against Muster, he'd just forget the finess and just get into a slug fest...unfortunately for him, Muster was ALWAYS in better shape than him and ALWAYS had better focus and concentration than him. It was a losing proposition almost every time because of that.
In terms of passes, the reason Bruguera was effective was because he was able to give net rushers so many different looks, angles, spins, and varying amounts of power.
Nadal's passes on the other hand are just straight up visciousness...however, we also don't see Nadal have to pass all that often either. We don't really know when it comes to passes anymore, it's almost not even a "category" or skillset or player attribute commentators even discuss anymore. Players don't come in like they used to, surfaces are much slower world-wide outside clay, and players certainly don't volley like Stich, Krajicek, Sampras, Henman, Edberg, Rafter, etc. anymore either. When Mardy Fish is considered a maestro at net, you stop to think, oh my gosh, that means if Rusedski and in her prime right now he'd be considered a McEnroe like "genius" at the net, lol.
Put it this way, the Bryans are very good volleyers. The Woodies are GREAT volleyers. Leander Paes is a GREAT volleyer, etc.