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Well, more of an epiphany. I realized you can trace the evolution of Final Fantasy gameplay through its experience systems, and that it's an oddly logical progression. Observe:
FFI: Straight-up XP - > levels - > power. Easy.
FFII: XP goes out the window for horribly broken skills-get-better-as-you-use-them hidden stats.
FFIII: XP returns, but the hidden stats based on usage return in a dumbed-down form in the job levels.
FFIV: XP and XP alone, in the model of FFI
FFV: Perhaps the crucial turning point in the evolution of FF gameplay, the XP system is supplemented with a secondary XP, in this case job points, which yield abilities.
FFVI: Next logical step: XP and AP
FFVII: As VI, but AP goes on Materia instead of characters.
FFVIII: XP alongside leveling up GFs instead of leveling up Materia
FFIX: Deliberate throwback to VI's system, almost verbatim.
FFX: XP and AP have bastard child, the Sphere Grid.
FFXII: Sphere Grid grows up, changes name to License Board and marries a girl from the traditional XP clan.
It's really kind of cool that you can see the development of their gameplay ideas over each iteration. Heaven only knows what XIII is going to do, of course.
FFI: Straight-up XP - > levels - > power. Easy.
FFII: XP goes out the window for horribly broken skills-get-better-as-you-use-them hidden stats.
FFIII: XP returns, but the hidden stats based on usage return in a dumbed-down form in the job levels.
FFIV: XP and XP alone, in the model of FFI
FFV: Perhaps the crucial turning point in the evolution of FF gameplay, the XP system is supplemented with a secondary XP, in this case job points, which yield abilities.
FFVI: Next logical step: XP and AP
FFVII: As VI, but AP goes on Materia instead of characters.
FFVIII: XP alongside leveling up GFs instead of leveling up Materia
FFIX: Deliberate throwback to VI's system, almost verbatim.
FFX: XP and AP have bastard child, the Sphere Grid.
FFXII: Sphere Grid grows up, changes name to License Board and marries a girl from the traditional XP clan.
It's really kind of cool that you can see the development of their gameplay ideas over each iteration. Heaven only knows what XIII is going to do, of course.
The way the magic systems progressed is pretty interesting, too...you can see the same sort of growth and development.
The whole gameplay evolution of FF is kind of cool. People complain about how each new iteration has ruined it, and while I do think IX has the ultimate gameplay design of any of the Final Fantasies (followed very closely by VI), I can see how VII and VIII lead to X, which lead to XII. I will be interested to see what mutations arrive with XIII.
Other than the MADDENING system of II, which is currently making me want to hurt things, I can't find too many complaints with the way things go in individual games purely because it's fun to see that progression. I firmly believe that people who don't play the games that came before VII are really missing out on understanding just why VII and those after it were so good.
With regard to VI, Celes and Terra picking up spells on their own kind of counted toward their respective "classes." They were the purest out-and-out mage characters.
And yeah, VII and its successors are really put in a much stronger context by I-VI. You can also trace the progression somewhat with the level of customizeability of your character classes, or how inherently distinct the characters were. In I they were basically set (each one had a class, and that was their class), in II they were flexible and broken, in III and V the job system determined class, inherent features were almost irrelevant, but in IV and VI each character had a very distinct class, though in VI they started the move towards "everyone can do everything but has a few unique superpowers," but each character was distinctly its own class. VII and VIII extended this, giving each character a few special tricks (Limit Breaks, mostly) but otherwise having them be entirely interchangeable. IX bounced back to IV, with each character having their own very distinct class and no skill-swapping, and X and XII abandoned the idea of classes entirely.
I always considered Celes and Terra to be sort of...specialized red mages. Yeah, they're the purest outright mage characters but they also whipped epic ass with a sword. I like whipping epic ass with a sword.
II is sort of odd, actually -- I'm playing it right now and 'level'-grinding prior to hitting the final dungeon, and the classes are flexible...but only to a point. Firion is clearly weighted towards being a paladin of sorts; he's got MUCH heavier spirit-related stats and he accumulates MP damn fast; he also hits like a ton of bricks. Maria, on the other hand, is clearly weighted towards being a black mage. Her intelligence stats mean Flare lv. 16 = can o' whoopass. Guy, on the other hand, is absolutely a pure fighter. It doesn't matter how hard you grind his magic stats, he accumulates MP ridiculously slow by comparison -- right now all of my party members have 999 MP...except him. And he's only at about 400, and I've ground just as much on his spells as on others. Leon's absolutely a dark knight; builds up MP like crazy, super-heavily weighted to offensive spells, and hits like a ton of bricks too. So they're odd; flexible-but-not.
I think the adherence to classes up through X has more to do with the long-running fantasy RPG tradition of classes. I happen to like them, it gives a sort of character depth that no classes can sometimes skip over a bit.
In fact, I think the only FFs where your stat growth is completely set are I and IV. X had 100% manual stat growth and XII...you know I'm not sure, were your stats in XII in any way related to the License Board?