I like Penelo, but she's never in my main party. Main party is always Vaan, Basch and Fran.

However, she does have adorable Quickenings, and I swear to God she gets them more often. I've had repeated Penelo Quickenings for about 4 or 5 times before getting another person. It's ridiculous. She literally saved my ass - TWICE - when I went up against the White Mousse at level 20 or something. I knew I couldn't win that battle by hitting him to death, simply because I was too low a level. But everyone had all their Quickenings by level 20ish, so the whole battle was "15+ Quickening Chain, ethers and elixirs and revives, 15+ Quickening Chain". It was...it was beautiful.

So yeah, to sum up. Although I find Penelo's character a little annoying (ohmigod stop whining), I like the fact that she's not as naive as normal FF gals, and since she saved my scrawny ass I've never thought of her as a less powerful character.