Just remember, 4Kids saw One Piece as an intellectual property that would make money through merchandise (remember those terrible toys?). Their market was kids and they wanted their parents money. They only bought shows that made a lot of money through merchandise in Japan anyway, right?
I feel sorry for the workers who made original content, such as the animators for TMNT. I appreciated shows such as Pokemon when I was young, 4Kids introduced many to exciting animation. However they clearly had no respect for any of the content they were handling, I'm glad they have vanished.
Funimation on the other hand saw One Piece as a property that anime fans wanted and would appreciated, unfortunately they couldn't afford One Piece at the time as 4Kids probably gave Toei a better offer. I could only imagine that if Funimation handled One Piece from the start it would have a much larger following in the US, and the UK. Anime fans came expecting the best but got the worse, it could have been the next best thing to the Dragon Ball Z years. It would have been great if Funimation handled One Piece from the start, if televised we would be episodes ahead!
In fact, wjbraden, Funimation were the ones pushing for the uncut DVD's of Shaman King and Yu-Gi-Oh. They really did listen to the fans!
I think most One Piece fans are satisfied with the Funimation dub, but not the pace that the episodes are being released. If anyone has a problem with how Funimation is handling One Piece, blame 4Kids! Ughh, talking about this makes me cringe a little bit.