^ But that makes them special to me, in that Square was doing in the late 90's what every AAA developer wishes they could do now.

I don't have a problem with some of the later FFs nixing the full armor sets, but I definitely prefer it. I love how IX and XII have them, in addition to a customization system, and I might put gameplay of those titles over the later of the FFs that don't have it. Love customization in those two.

As far as cutscenes, I definitely understand the difficulty and that's probably why most games with full armor sets don't change character appearance. But I think we're at an age where developer's can make it happen. White Knight Chronicles did, but that still had the problem of the armor sets looking the same. Again, I think they can put in the little extra effort and have one character's scale mail look different and individually personalized than another character wearing the same set.