I'm not the type of person that minds spoilers but I don't exactly go around asking everyone what happens.

I was sooooo lost when I first encountered materia. I equipped All materia with All materia and I wondered why nothing was happening. Geeeez... For the Junction system, I use Auto Junction for disc 1 and 2 because I just didn't get it. My policy now is to go through a game blindly once then go through again and do everything 100% with the help of anything.