You just gained a 1000^10 respect points to me xD

Thanks.

The license board system is just so in-depth and you can customize your characters much more than any other Final Fantasy. I think the real-time ATB system was implemented extremely well. I think the bare-bones battle system though was beaten by FFXIII. But everything else was implemented so well and more than makes up for it.

FF12 has pretty much everything you could ask for in a Final Fantasy game and more.

Except for story. Which is why it falls behind FF7 and FF9 in overall quality.

Well, globally I agree that the story of FFXII does seem a bit lacking if you compare to both those titles. Like the OP said and other posters have referred, the quality of FFXII, story-wise, comes from all the plots intertwined within, not the main plot itself. I don't know how far you're in, so I won't spoil.

I enjoyed the license board for those same things, you could play as you saw fit. I did various playthroughs with different approaches. A full ranged archers team, pistols, 2H swords, ultra-fast katana combo team, enhancer-heavy team.

My preference is to get Fran or Asche in pistols, as casters/supporters, equipped with Fomalhauts. Not only does that keep them out of range from most enemy AOE attacks and line of sight, it also guarantees that they can keep close to any other character in your team, meaning fast healing periods without them having to come close before casting animation begins

Khuutra told me pistols have such low attack power because they ignore defense. But truthfully on regular enemies, they wouldn't be good. I'm giving spears to Fran for the evasion and rods for Ashe for the magick boost.  Serpent's rod is awesome because with 3 quickenings it's 30MP and it has good atk power. 

I'm at the Stilshrine of Mariam. 21 hours played so far about. All I can say is the regular enemies are a complete bitch. I should power up more... those Garuda-Egi's seem awesome to grind off of. I think the loot sells for an insane amount.

Every other pistol is indeed pretty much useless, but when you get the Fomalhauts... 5000 - 6000 damage guaranteed, without factoring weaknesses from the bullets.

Spears are a good choice, but if you didn't bother with a faqs before hand (or didn't ask khuutra) then you've probably messed up in getting the Zodiark Spear (you're not missing much, although it's one of the highest damaging weapons in the game, it barely comboes).

In the Stilshrine of Miriam I actually farmed off the Dragon Aevis (there are three in one of the early rooms). The Wyrm Carapace that they drop sells for almost 800 if I'm not mistaken. 

Those Miriam enemies are a bit of a problem, but I'll see how much the loot from the Garuda-Egi drops.

I know what the Zodiark Spear is. You have to open like two non-unique chests in front of that old geezer's house and then like there's a 1/1000 chance it spawns in a chest.

That's complete bullshit if you ask me. Why make it so cryptic and so annoying to get.

Then there's the Seitengrat in ZJS. A 1/10000 chance and it appears in an invisible chest on an airship. Oh and you gotta have a specific accessory equipped.

WHY make it so cryptic, so throughly hidden only programmers would know they're there. Why! WHY!

Actually, that unique chest you're talking about, is one of the four unique chests that you must not open during the entire game, until you reach the necrohol of nabudis. 

Once in the necrohol of nabudis, once you reach the room of 12 chests, if you didn't open any of the four unique chests, it will randomly appear on any of the 12 chests. If you did open any of the unique chests, an Elixir will appear instead of the Spear.

The other way to get the Zodiark, is indeed with a 1/1000 chance chest... but inside the Henne Mines B1, which is the FFXII equivalent of hell XD (enemy levels start from 68 and upwards).

The reason so many people find FF12's story "boaring" is becasue they didn't understand everything that was being said. No matter how you want to spin it and give your reasons. FF12 has a highbrow script and most can't handle it so they never got connected.

FF13 went back to stereotypical characters that are easy to understand with the usual one-liners.

I think it's perfectly possible to find FF12's story the best in the series (which I do, by a huge margin) while not thinking less of people who don't agree. People have different value metrics for what they find engaging and interesting in a story; I don't assume that people "didn't understand" it unless they clearly demonstrate that in some way.

About story in my opinion FF12 has the most cool and complex story of any other FF (except FF13 that I don't play yet).

Overalll FF12 was on pair with FF6... the best over all FFs.