One of the controversial features of Punctuated Equilibria is that it was presented as being opposed to a Darwinian view. While it may have been opposed to a view of Darwin commonly held by Palaeontologists, it does not seem to be so different from Darwin's actual views
Quotes are from the 6th edition of
On the Origin of Species which is easily found on the Internet, including Project Gutenberg.
With animals and plants that propagate rapidly and do not wander much, there is reason to suspect, as we have formerly seen, that their varieties are generally at first local; and that such local varieties do not spread widely and supplant their parent-form until they have been modified and perfected in some considerable degree. According to this view, the chance of discovering in a formation in any one country all the early stages of transition between any two forms, is small, for the successive changes are supposed to have been local or confined to some one spot.
p819
It is a more important consideration, leading to the same result, as lately insisted on by Dr. Falconer, namely, that the period during which each species underwent modification, though long as measured by years, was probably short in comparison with that during which it remained without undergoing any change.
p820
While fall short of full-blown PE these are close enough that PE can be seen as more of an extension of Darwin's views than contradicting them