Thanks everyone and sorry for the huge delay in reply. My post got lost in the mists of time lol.

You're all quite right, and in general i think i should just rip the plaster off and get on with the dreaded grind of this. Money isn't too much of an issue, nor is achieving perfect melds with IV materia (afaik, it's not a huge difference in stats after that anyway?)

I'm truly looking forward to nexus grind, you know, actually going and playing the game properly to advance xD