I agree with TC in all points except one. Fran doesn't qualify as best protagonist of anything. Aside from being dressed like a hooker and fighting monsters in 6inch heels, she's little more than a plot device to help push the story forward. Seriously, if you need to know something, Frans your girl. She knows all about the Garif, she knows ledgends of the Nu Mou, she has ancient songs from her people, she smells the mist, she reads ancient text or simply just "senses" something. It's shameful how much she's abused for this purpose.

On the subject of why FFXII's sidequests are great and FFXIII's are poor, this is more to do with the execution. FFXIII has you read some dull text on a wall and then you simply go to the marker on the map and fight the same enemy you've faced several times already. The fact that the enemies location is marked for you just emphasizes the fact you're needlessly running from A to B to reach your battle. Compare this with FFXII. You find the guy who posts the bill and he'll tell you why he wants the mark slaying. You then have to figure out where he'll be and then figure out how to spawn it. You actually feel like you're hunting something rather than being told to fight yet another battle. The battles are also much more unique rather than the standard pallette swaps in FFXIII that generally behave the exact same way as before but with slightly higher stats.

Also, as already mentioned, Monster hunting is one sidequest amongst many. I'll be the first to admit that FFXII is a little heavy on the fetch quests, but the bonus dungeons, puzzles, hidden espers, rare treasures and pirates den are all good sidequests too. Fishing and pirate olympics are a bit meh, but there's something for everyone

As for Vaan, he's a massive, massive improvement over that whiney, tantrum throwing baby from FFX. Characters like that need to be in very short doses or better yet, how about we role play as a hard as nails badass like Auron and leave the whiney crybabies at home with their mummies.