I've got to throw support to Raistlin and Fynn with regards to optimal playing, I think that hits it pretty well. I think many of us are made that way, and that more is on the creator to provide more obstacles to it.

As to Raistlin's argument about the materia system and replay value... To me that is an interesting and respectable opinion... While I agree that it hurts storyline consistency not to have fixed classes, to me, FFVII was THE most replayable game, in large part because of the materia system. I was able to never have a similar party twice! Whether I wanted to have different "semi-fixed" jobs, or just jumble up materia combos differently, or focus on leveling different characters in different ways and for different reasons, I found each playthrough of FFVII unique because of all that. So, I thought that was a fun difference of impressions of that system.