I'm very fortunate in that all 3 of my cats have excellent litterbox habits. When Neytiri came home to me, I did the "keep her on the same litter she used at the cattery" thing. she was supposedly used to those sawdust pellet litters, so I started her out on that (the breeder gave me some)... that was a debacle. What a mess! I really don't think she liked it very well either :(. So after only a few days I switcher her over to what the bengals were using and we never looked back.
They prefer LARGE open boxes (as in, I searched a number of places and bought the largest ones I could find), one is used for pee and one for poo. I use tidy cat litter, which they are happy with. I like it because it clumps real well, has a nice smell, and they recently came up with a light version of the litter (light as in less heavy) which is a little more expensive by is way easier for me to lug around.
You definitely need to just go with whatever works for your cat though. If your cat doesn't like a box or a litter you are using, you gotta pretty much dump it immediately and find one he likes better. That's the way it works. Doesn't matter so much what you want