Uematsu <3
Went to the Chicago Dear Friends concert and got to shake his hand, it was great.
Actually he doesn't do just video games anymore, he scored the ff7 movie that recently came out (advent children). In fact he spends most of his time touring with the Black Mages and running his company now.
Liberai Fatali is basically Carl Orf + Stravinsky (as is one winged angel)
as far as theme recycling goes, it's less that he recycles and more that the thing that the theme belongs to, that "element" is in all the games. Chocobo's for instance, are in most every game. They are definied not only by the way they look but also by the way they sound, so the theme is the same in every game, only modified by style. So most of the time if you're hearing something similar to previous themes, it's for a reason, to give a throwback and connect those two things.
Actually I've been disapointed with FF music of late, as they've been moving away from Nobuo doing it and moving toward his students (who suck, HIRE ME INSTEAD!!! [:'(] ) Although FF12 isn't out in the states yet, so I haven't heard any of it's music yet.
The other "greats" of game composing are Koji Kondo(zelda, mario) and Jeremy Seoul(oblivion, morrowind, guild wars). Though for my money I enjoy Uematsu's work the best.