That's the problem with the battle system.  You can't have only a string of boss battles.  It's just not a very good battle system when you combine the fact that you actually have to have normal battles in there as well.  Even with the boss battles though, like I mentioned a few posts above, putting the game on manual, you're only going to use a specific amount of attacks per class.

Sentinel youl'l only use two to three, Commando only one or two, Ravager possibly just a single attack, Medic one or two, and only Saboteur and Synergist are the ones where you're going to cast spells like Haste first, then the other useful buffs, while Saboteur you'll probably have as the other two characters since by the time they're done casting, you'll have the Synergist spells that are useful for that battle. 

Boss battles that have no elemental weakness or strength, thunder is the fastest spell, so as a ravager, casting nothing but thunder gets you quick access to filling your ATB again, making it far more efficient to use than other spells.  Kind of breaking the reason to even bother with other spells and skills in the ravager line up in a single enemy boss battle.

I think you're getting too caught up on the issue of manual vs automatic, when the game is also about elements like paradigm shifting, staggering, chain bonus, and so on.  While I'm not saying the battle system is without its flaws, I simply think that the battle system had the mechanics to offer interesting combat, which worked in the more difficult fights, but there simply weren't enough of them for most people to appreciate it, especially with the main content.

Edit: I guess I'm thinking of battle system design and encounter design as separate entities, which may mean a part of this debate is due to semantics.

I've beaten the game.  I'm not forgetting about anything.  Paradigm shift is implied as it's required.  You don't do it throughout the game, throughout even some normal battles in the game, and you're not going to finish the game.

And aside from that, the same strategy can be done on just about every single boss battle.  It's not like because FF13 has a fast ATB system and paradigm shift is  required that it gives a lot of depth to the strategy.  The strategy is minor.  Press Turn SMT games as well as many other games with different types of turn based combat, required more strategy as turn based games on normal battles than Final Fantasy 13 does on most battles.

On Final Fantasy 4, with Rosa on the party, I'd cast slow on many random enemies, not just boss battles.  Rydia's stop is often times more useful than casting any other spell in the game.  End game on Final Fantasy 4, one of your regular battles would be two red giants.  Cast stop on one, slow on the other, as Cecil, Edge, and Kain are attacking the one that is stopped, when Rydia's turn comes around again, cast stop on the other.  On a Behemoth, have Edge cast pin or Rosa cast hold, with Cecil and Kain attacking.  Another strategy to that same battle would be Edge casts image and Rosa casts blink, having Cecil attack and Kain jumping, while Rosa casts blink only to restore anyone who has lost the spell. There's far more strategy on FF4 than there is on FF13, and this is both random encounters and boss battles. So saying Final Fantasy 13 has a bit of strategy on boss battles only is nothing.  It's like saying 1% of the game is playable.

The cutscenes were poorly written. The story was poorly told.

The fact that you have to read this

...to get what you need out of the story goes to show what a poor job SE did. I think that some of the enjoyment is lost with FFXIII if you don't read the datalog, but it shouldn't be that way. You shouldn't have to read walls of text to get the full context of the game.

In contrast, Chrono Trigger is excellent on ALL fronts, not just its battle system (which btw you are comparing games from two totally different eras). Story, characters, gameplay, music.... it has it all and that's why it is so highly praised.

Don't make me unfriend you.  I'm j/k. 

FF10-2 had the best version of the ATB system, a pretty good system, and while I didn't like the world map in FF10 as it was point A to B the entire game, the world map is actually good on FF10-2 because you start with the airship and go to different areas.  The world itself isn't so linear at that point.

I never had to read the datalog to understand the story, it only confirmed what I already knew.

Additionally, while you can isolate certain advanced tactics in Final Fantasy IV, you could also get through a lot of its content without strategy, increasingly so depending on your level.  I think encounter design in general is something that many RPGs, both within the Final Fantasy series, as well as other games, have had trouble dealing with.

Well, sorry, but when I am seven hours into a game and I still don't understand why a Fal'Cie turn L'Cie which can become Cie'th can also be a Fal'Cie that protects people if it doesn't turn them to L'Cie cause Cocoon, I had to get to the datalog to understand wtf is going on.

When I realized that Fal'Cie were "good" I was blown away. The Pulse are supposed to be the bad ones. I mean, WTF.

This game relied on the datalog for crucial things.

I swear Vanille explained what Fal'cie and L'cie are concisely and clearly a million times in her monologues.

Cocoon Fal'cie and Pulse Fal'cie are pretty much the same, just on opposite sides.

I never had to read the datalog to understand the story, it only confirmed what I already knew.