Actually FFX does pretty much give you a tutorial on how the combat system should work and pretty much does tell you "this is how we want you to play the game". Even until a quarter of the way into the game, some of your party members are still ineffective on enemy types they weren't designed to stop, and trying to waste turns letting Yuna smack a monster with her wand when Auron can kill it in one hit seems more like being stupid rather than "thinking outside the box". Granted, Lulu can pretty much work on most of the monsters and Yuna's summons can destroy everything that is not from the Monster Arena but its still not changing the fact I can decimate a group of monsters in a single round. The only time the game really starts to drop this BS is when they finally start to give you large monsters you're meant to use summons on and I simply fight them normally cause they are not that hard. Even then sadly, the game now just plays like a non-ATB version of the old games, so the best part of the game is when it emulates games that are ten years older than it.
Often times challenges in the game were created by me (like the one I mentioned, about going through fights without letting the enemy get a turn) cause the game could not offer any, and to me, that is not "freedom of choice" rather its poor game design cause I have to bring my own entertainment. I've fought the bosses fair and I've also destroyed them by just entering the fights with every Overdrive at the ready. I never felt that either was terribly more enjoyable than the other, more like one was incredibly faster and required less effort than the other option and it irritates me to know I can simply do that and win.