Regarding Vaan's feminism...

[Kawaii Ryûkishi]

Well duh, that's the original Japanese concept artwork. They have two kinds. The kind they know the Japanese will like and the kind they know the Americans will accept.

It has nothing to do with pandering to specific audiences. That's the original artwork, and if you can't go by that, you can't go by anything. Also, I don't even know where you're coming from with that "two kinds" bit. The only thing I can think of is that Nintendo Power put out some American-made artwork for their features on FFI, FFIV, and FFMQ, but that stuff really should not be considered even in the same league as the official artwork, especially since, at least in the case of FFIV, it looked supremely stupid.