When Jack ran for leadership he was a Professor at Ryerson who had published an excellent work on homelessness and had served as leader of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM, Fédération canadienne des municipalités). As well as the people who had heard of him as an academic many people in municipal politics from across the country knew Jack. Methinks neither the original Joe Who nor the proposed new Joe Who would be the right choice for new leader.
Oh please I liked Jack (because he lived in my riding) but in 2001 if you asked 10 random people (outside of Toronto) to pick him out of a line-up nobody would know who he was. Again you have to think how high his recognition factor was in 2001.
In the summer before the 2015 election writ was dropped, many people still know who the leader of the NDP was!