I liked it. I know it have much use in FFV so the ditched it, but in FF VI the fact that your party had tobe restricted to 4 people was pulling enough weight that you had to split up for no real reason. It shoul've been used more.

As for the rowing system, yeah I think it made sense. You can't really defend four people with one guy so putting more people in the back would be silly. I don't see why they restriched the other way around.