Ha, NOOBS! EXPERT FFXII players put it on Active at the fastest setting, because if you're really a PRO, you'll know exactly how the battles in a given location will play out with no deviation.

As far as battles systems, you have to consider what the system actually is and how wel it's done.

To be fair to X, there is a fair amount of customization along the way a character's progression. There are plenty of side clusters of nodes where you can decide to deviate, then get back on the main path, or continue and not waste spaces. Much like FFIX, you may not be able to decide what class your character is, but you have a lot of freedom to decide what kind of warrior/b. mage/thief/etc your character will be.

Also, there are enough times where you can actually just switch classes completely, depending on what Key Spheres you have. My only complaint about the system is how scarce those are.

I'm slightly more inclined to License's, but there's enough flaws in it. Augments and techniques were horribly grouped. Sure, phys augments are on the bottom, with mage augments on top, but that's as differentiated as it gets. A thief will have to take basically the same path as a warrior, and getting every useless augment along the way. Not to mention that so far into the game, you might as well have every character get every augment. So much for customization...

techniques are even worse, it's like the game created a "technique class" route. Instead of getting the techs you need for a warrior (Str/Int/Spr/Def <---Break), those are so far down that you have to go through every useless mage, geomancer, whatever technique just to get it. To get this at any reasonable time in the game, you basically have a Warrior who sacrificed equipment, stat boost, and ability licenses just so he could have the Breaks. It doesn't get much worse than that.