I think judging FFXV as developed from 2006-2016 is perfectly fair. Regardless of whether they had to start from scratch in 2012 and other structural changes, those issues are all on Square and it's fair to hold them accountable rather than saying they get to reset the clock on themselves by changing the project title and direction. Also, they definitely didn't start 100% from scratch. I remember seeing the characters of FFXV in the videos for FF Versus XIII. Even if they had to rebuild character models, they clearly didn't scrap the whole conception of what they had previously.