I don't know what a "Chiyo" is, but it somehow sounds familiar...

Theres a diffference in doing something that isn't mainstream and something thats just opposite of whats proven to work, Tanaka did the latter.
And I'm not sure how going on an exciting adventure a'la LotR style being evolved into instant teleport> dungeon> boss fight> loot, is comparable to the evolution of grocery shopping xD

Look at another genre; platform games, remember all thoose 3d sonic games, compare them to the Sonic games that are considered "good" which mostly boils down to the 2d ones, evolution in the sense of video game development doesn't always mean its a step up, and its also subject to taste.
Another example is FPS games, where cover based shooters are very populaur nowadays, some people very much enjoy them while others prefer to play more old school style shooters.

For me a lot of what made MMORPGs fun and different from other game genres is slowly being peeled away and its no longer fully what I used to love, but sadly I have no other alternative since every MMO is nowadays pretty much the same.

Oh and I never left, its just a quote ^__^