FFV just required you to look a little harder to see depth in the characters. In FFVIII all the characters were VERY different Zell=energetic and enthusiastic Selphy=hyper Seifer=cocky cool Quistis=mature Squall=emotionally stunted Irvine=ladies man.
But in FFV the characters weren't so different. They would all appear at first to have no personality or depth. It didn't help that the scripting was so poor, but as proven in this thread, Bartz had plenty of times to shine as a character