I just rewatched it. It's been a few years since last and I must say I liked it much better this time. I don't know if it is because I'm not quite as overawed by the animation anymore (knowing a bit about it helps both to understand how much work goes into something like this and to make it seem a little bit less like magic), but I liked the story much better than I remembered especially the ending. It fits together nicely and makes a self contained kind of sense. Still think they could have written something better when they were going to put all that effort into animating it.
Looking forward now to Advent Children, the movie continuing the story line from FF7, that should come out sometime this year. I've got four trailers for it sitting on my drive and it looks like it's going to be sweet.

Listening to: Inoue Azumi - Tonari no Totoro