About the bolded part.
Final Fantasy 2 - while once being the black sheep of the series - was the basis for an entirely new series called Romancing SaGa, an RPG series with a significantly higher difficulty and learning curve than your average Final Fantasy game, basically taking the leveling formula of FF2 to be the standard for a new IP entirely. If FFXIII had gone this route with a new IP (or better yet, a new name) from the get-go, that game probably would've been better received as its own as opposed to the overwhelming hate it's getting now.
I know. The main reason XIII gets so much hate is the fact there hasn't been any new entries since XIII, so people who didn't like it was stuck till now, which is basically 6 years for a mainline title.
The problem I have with that mentality is the fact that people still act so vindictive on the on the game even though Square released enough games to atleast to ignore the fact.
It doesn't help that there is beginning to be plenty of articles of bloggers rightfully pointing out that the bitching has gone too far at this point, it especially doesn't help when you have reviewers like Gametrailers going to insane lengths to justify getting XIII a good score...but then rail against it, saying the series deserves to die and marking it as #10 worst FF in some level of ridiculous way to make them seem like they are on our side. It's just pathetic to be honest.
TL;DR I can understand why the hatred has lasted for so long, but at this point with the series over and the FF cycle is bound to continue(especially with XV getting a saga too), this type of thing HAS to die off as it's getting extremely pathetic on both sides(but more on the anti side)