Say what you want about Tanaka, he helped make FFXI one of the best MMOs ever.
I don't even place the failure of 1.0 entirely at his feet. There were other people higher up who wanted FFXIV out the door ASAP. I'm sure they didn't care that it wasn't finished because it could be perpetually updated --and they certainly didn't expect players/media/etc to get up in arms about it.
This game (and FFXIII) caused a big wakeup at SE. They realized that just because your game is called 'Final Fantasy', it doesn't mean that everyone will give you a free pass if it turns out to be a pile.
But, but...
(actually, FFXI on vita would be very cool, but I don't think I'll be going back to it unless they make it f2p, or at least give us FFXIV players a substantial discount)