I second that Eyenixon... 5 & 3/6 kicked it's keister in plot and story development, not to mention the fact that they were anatomically correct!
FF7 is when Squaresoft discovered 'the formula' wherein at least one main character has to be a Blond (Mentally or literally) Emo pipsqueak who is ridiculously garbed to the point where they become Bishounen bait...
There are no more kickass or cool main characters anymore, they're all emo Bishies!
In FF7 Cid was the coolest, and he got the least screen time, look at Locke from FF 3/6, he kicks ass (personality wise) and he's the main character, in fact all of them had something that made them cool/unique, EVEN the villains.
FF7 + Makes me cry, FF9 gave me hope, then dashed it when they came out with 10, 12 then picked me up again slightly, enough to make me buy the game, but after a while it fell back into 'the formula'.
I don't want a mainstream Final Fantasy (at least stop calling it Final, there ain't nothing final about it anymore!) I want them to toss out 'the formula' and go back to making games where the characters had personality, depth, and no emo in sight save for actual sad moments in the game (the dying sea serpent from FF5 for example.)
Ugh!
[/rant]