It might be fair to say that the acknowledgment of Hayek’s work was aided by his compromises, but what you are saying is tantamount to asserting that without his compromises, his work wouldn’t have been deemed worthy of any acknowledgment. Such a sweeping judgment is unfounded, and rather cheeky coming from someone who has within the past few months professed to be not that into economics, and has only recently started considering it more earnestly with David Gordon’s introductory book.
First of all, Mises liked a lot of people too. As you can read in Hulsmann’s magnificent biography, Mises was on friendly terms with people who ranged from old school Manchesterism to outright socialism. Although Professor Raico did study under Mises in America, he didn’t see how Mises conducted himself among the socialists who predominated in Europe. So judging from Hulsmann’s characterization, which was drawn from careful study of Mises’ life in Europe, I think Raico (who I greatly admire) was exaggerating or was mistaken in the lecture series you seem to be quoting when he said, “Mises hated these people” in regard to socialists. As Hulsmann characterized it, the only kind of people Mises shunned were people he saw as lacking in character. And he did not look on the extent of error as evidence for lack of character. In fact, while he remained on good terms with many outright socialists, he broke off contact with a former student of his simply for him becoming a monetary interventionist, since Mises knew his student knew better, and was consciously making the shift for career reasons.
Furthermore, many of the differences between Hayek and Mises stem from methodological differences that stem from the fact that Hayek cut his eye-teeth under Wieser. He was not a full-on Misesian who simply later diverged as a compromise. He was ALWAYS considerably different as an economist.
Also, while Hayek was something of a “neo-liberal”, he, perhaps out of all the economists influenced by Mises adhered most faithfully to laissez-fair liberalism. Liberal economist after liberal economist in Europe were swept up by Keynesianism and other interventionist academic trends. But Hayek never joined them. Even after Lionel Robbins fell away, Hayek remained as liberalism’s chief bulwark in Britain. He even ardently led the fight against the Mont Pelerin Society’s shift toward a more-interventionist brand of neoliberalism. And by the way, everyone talks about Milton Friedman’s tale of Mises storming out of the Society’s first meeting declaring the other members to be socialists. But he CAME BACK. And worked ardently for years to convince the interventionist members of the society through civil discussion.
Finally, Hayek was a great economist. His crucial work extending and filling in Mises’ trade cycle theory is, in and of itself, reason enough for him to be widely acknowledged. So to say that he “is only acknowledged because of his compromises” is a rather unfair, unfounded, and harsh denigration.