Excellent game...but too many characters.

i played this back in junior high, and i thought it was an incredible, my only problem with it was that there were just too many damn characters. i always get attached to the characters in Final Fantasy, thats why i loved 7 and 8 so much. and i got attached to characters in this game too, but eventually as you got more and more characters it became harder to maintain your battle crew. I mean do you use orlandu or Agrias when you've had some no-named squire that you've been using since the first battle who is equelly as powerful? i think i honestly would have felt better if the storyline entailed the death of some main characters...i mean the death of Aries in 7 had me speachless...and though sad..added that much more intrest and passion into the game. Like you know you want to kill sephiroth cuz he killed one of your characters. And tactics is all about war, there shouldve been more casualties...i just think it would have made the game even better. or at least give an explanation of them leaving the party. like those arabian twins...forgot there names...i always deleted them from my party because i knew everyone "dies" at the end of the final battle. But it wouldve been easier if the game just set it up so some of those guest characters would just leave with an explanation...make my life easier.