Was it? I mean, I get that you could alter how you played based on other means, like materia or junction, but most FF titles didn't actually make stats matter that much. It was practically always down to highest damage weapon and highest def armor with a varying accessory. Even with things like materia in VII, it honestly just came down to relying heavily on physical damage materia or survival boost (HP%+). You could always choose to boost your magic, but it didn't mean much to the overall game when the clear winning stats were apparent, just like here. Games like FFT were very basic/vertical and down to wearing the best gear available for the job. XI was one of the few to branch out from that and actually affect your character to the core of gameplay.
Were there a significant majority of FF games that had meaningful customization to stat choice? From my own memory, I don't know of much besides XI. Even grid systems were only temporary choices since you could always elect to max them out.
