Yeah Shenmue II working out the way it did was a blessing in disguise. The dub for the first was so bad, whereas playing the 2nd game subtitled was fantastic.
Also I definitely agree, they are really polarizing games. Someone made a really good post about it awhile back, I think it was Zeta. Saying that basically it will be impossible to appeal to the old fans and to make it a good new game, or something like that. I'm looking forward to Shenmue 3 though, just to see how it goes.