Well yeah, Talius is the leader of a real military force
His soldiers know that they are just pawns of the Empire, and are a tiny part of a huge force that Skyrim needs

Ulfric has only a couple handfuls, he needs every sword he can get.

they were talking about townspeople

Ulfric needs to look good
Talius needs to save a kingdom

Ulfric cares about his people, and wants to fight for his peoples freedom (albeit with a touch of racism)
Talius doesn't care for the people of skyrim, and fights to end the war so he may go home.
Ulfric has a cause, Talius has a job. that's the difference i see

No, Tullius is a veteran and a leader, a big picture kind of guy. The way he sees it is that if he has to kill twice as many people at once to succeed in ending the war, that's better than letting it continue twice as long for no reason. Either way the same amount of people die, and one way they have to wait that much longer to start rebuilding.

Ulfric is an arrogant selfish prick who started a needless war because he didn't like the people in charge.

They are both veterans and leaders. Ulfric is a guy who wants skyrim free from the empire and Tullius is doing what the Aldmeri Dominion is telling him to. albeit, Ulfric is just as much of a pawn as Tullius, I still like Ulfric more, since he is worried about the effect of the war on townspeople.

That's just the thing though, Ulfric plays right into the Dominions hands. Civil war weakens Skyrim and seceding from the empire fractures the only fighting force left to face the dominion. If Ulfric really hated the dominion and had half the brainpower necessary to lead he'd be building up forces and strengthening ties with the empire, giving them support when they need it most, not splitting Tamriel into a scattered and weakened series of easy conquests.

I'm sure it wouldn't work that way, the Aldmeri Dominion has their noses so far up the Empires back side, the Empire wouldn't have the gull. they just lost the war with them and are scrambling to make them happy.

Except they didn't lose. They fought the war to a stalemate. Admittedly the terms of the white-gold concordant favored the Dominion, but not as heavily as most people believe. What the Empire needs now is to get back on it's feet and show the Dominion that old blood runs deep, not that their oldest and most steadfast allies will leave them as soon as the situation looks rough.

it was signed in because they were losing the war, and the Aldmeri Dominion saw a benefit in signing an agreement: force the Empire to do what they want them to.

They weren't loosing the war, they had just retaken the Imperial City, thus destroyed the mein army of the Dominion. After this the Emperor signed and pretty much left Hammerfell to fend for themselves, but they threw dem outta dat' bitch. Had the empire kept on fighting they would have won the war eventually.

They also wanted to make Skyrim weaker by all the infighting. Read the books on the way to the torture room at the Aldmeri party they prefer the empire but they don't want them to win. They want to follow war with more war so they can conquer Tamriel. (thats what I got from it all at least)