The Fractale section in Aroduc's 2011 Winter preview sums Yamakan's career thus:

The main notable things are that this is the second of three shows Okada is writing for this season and that the director’s said he’ll quit if it fails, which is less of a threat than one might think since he’s only actually fully directed one series (Kannagi) and was already kicked off another for sucking (Lucky Star).

Recently Yamakan was more known for his off-screen antics, such as pouring a pan of wash-off at K-ON and its fans. WAH even dedicated a comic to his pointifications. Basically, he never learned from his mistakes and it's not him who sucks, it's the viewers who are undeserving of his genius. NoitaminA is a logical place for him.

Speaking of NoitaminA, someone at #animeblogger pithily defined it as "a [dedicated] channel for Japanese stoners". Some of its fare is rather good, e.g. Kuragehime. I am going to keep an open mind and give Yamakan one last-last chance to get promoted from "useless blowhard" to "pretentious prick" [1]. I am not going to fogive him the bashing of K-ON fans even if Fractale comes out outstanding.

[1] I am bad at English swear words and I have to learn them. For example, one important moment of my education transpired when my daugher, then 9 or 10, shared how her classmate used "spoiled rotten egg" because official swear words were verbotten in class. "Pretentious prick" I heard applied to Mamoru Oshii, who, as I understand, never even was as nasty as Yamakan, just pretentious in his anime directing and somewhat condescending. UPDATE: J.P. twitters: ``i probably wouldn't even go as far to call oshii "pretentious". probably just "indulgent".''