Finished Chapter 11 finally after backtracking and unlocking some Chocobos for fun. Didn't bother fighting the Ochu that pops up in that one area... Restored Vanille's pet and finally got around to really using the upgrade system now that the game finally started giving me stuff like Platinum and Gold Ingots that can be sold for massive amounts of gil.

My main party of Snow, Lightning , and Hope all have level 2 tier weapons and I must say the largest drawback I've seen with leveling the starting weapons is the huge downgrade they get when transformed to level 2. I also got my main party a couple of Sprint Shoes on account of the crap load of Teatric Crowns (sp?) I got when I was farming Mark #7 and finally having enough gil to really play with the dismantle system.

I was going to backtrack and finish a few more Mark Hunts and maybe max out the three starting Roles for all my characters but decided that if I didn't move onto Chapter 12 now, I never would. So I'm starting Chapter 12 later tonight or tomorrow.