Thinking on this, it seems like the Huge Materia quest was conceived because the scenario writers needed something to extend the time between Cloud being discovered at Mideel and Cloud waking up after Mideel. Without it, Tifa and co. would have found him and immediately the place would be wrecked by a Weapon and Tifa and Cloud would end up in the Lifestream sequence (one of my favourites, actually). It would all be moving far too quick, especially after the huge Junon escape event, which itself already followed the mindsmurf Whirlwind Maze bit.

It also allows the player some nice free-roaming, since, up to this point, the game has been pretty consistently and briskly sending the player from new location to location. It's a sequence that triples as relaxing (actually it's depressing) downtime, an opportunity to re-visit areas of interest, and a throwback Crystal Quest. I used to like this scenario in my younger days, but now I think it's actually the weakest part of the game, mainly because the whole section feels a bit slapdash (obviously) - extending game time an extra 3-5 hours for its own sake. I've been tearing through Chrono Cross lately, and I find that it does kind of the same thing in parts. Although I do feel CC's Sleeping Dragons scenario is done a bit better (including a few a-ha moments because the game lets you explore so freely earlier on) it still kind of grinds the game's otherwise compelling narrative to a halt.