It's not that it doesn't work, it's that real time is easier to process for people, which is why the mainstream puts pressure on action based combat.

Bravely Default did good... for a handheld game that was expected to be extremely niche. It had far from the cultural influence games like The Witcher and other RPGs had. Literally no one aside from old school RPG and anime fans played it. It was a love letter towards us. Whereas FFVII:R is means to reach a wide audience.

Compare this to movies, where slow, thoughtful, subtle independent titles can be more poignant and even rewarding from what has mass appeal, but in the past, slower movies WERE part of the mainstream.

Short answer: times are changing. Does that mean there's something wrong with turn based combat? Hell no. I want it there just like any other person. But the mainstream has little patience for that now that all games in it are so action-centered.

I'm actually okay with this, unless someone comes up to say turn based systems need to die and FF needs to quit making them. Yeah, let's just make all the games the same, because things that are different are inherently inferior and diversity should be eliminated

On that note, I'm still in the "yay" camp when it comes to the remake as I'm really curious what they'll make it work like. I usually prefer for remakes to do things differently because really, when will you try different things for a game if not in a remake?