Gosh, where to start...
First, YOU DON'T HAVE TO SCREAM TO MAKE YOUR POINT.
Now that we've got that out of the way, while your point about surface area is correct, the OP wasn't asking about the virtues of split vs. unsplit wood for drying, he was asking about getting it off the ground vs. leaving it lie in moisture. I think we can all agree that split wood is preferable for drying.
In terms of getting it off the ground, anything is better than nothing, and if pallets is all that's available they beat the bottom of the stack lying in mud. Given a choice, I'll take the setup in the photo I included (not mine; stock from internet) vs. a bunch of 3" at best wooden pallets that may rot and collapse before the wood directly above them gets used. And to the point of airflow to the wood, I'd much prefer a row of the setups I showed with space in between each for air and sun, than that above, as there's a lot of wood there getting next to zero sun and likely not a whole lot more airflow.