Gosh. Down, fanboy... they're just opinions

It's just personal taste. Sure there are some hidden bits and pieces, but I definitely preferred the FFVII-style days of "turn the clock to 'blah' and grab the ribbon from the treasure chest (which was always there)" to FFXII's "If you explore the area you can find some treasure chests, they can contain either a gambit(rare), a potion(uncommon) or 22 gil(ridiculously common)!" (exaggerated, but you get the idea)

The only thing too long with FFX, imo, was the bit inside Sin. At that point you just want to get on with kicking its arse, but you have to fight through zone after zone after zone. And if you fail to beat the first baddie you end up going through all that ice-crystals-popping-out-of-ground tedium again.

Also the other reason it feels long even though it was quite short - random battles every 2 steps! FFX was *hell* for random battles, especially going up Macalania forest and Gagazet Mountain the long ways, those were the true meaning of torture. This is where FFXII excels (due to its ditching of random battles), as even though agro is unavoidable you can just hold 'run' if you want to get on with things without having to sit through the battle-smash, opening scene and fading scene every time.