If you give any character all the powerups of course they will be super strong. But you could use your powerup on 3 good units and have 3 super strong units rather than just 1.

Hero crest is to promote myrmidons, mercenaries and fighters. Hyperion might be talking about earth seal. The next Knight crest you get is in a secret shop in chapter 29 but then is too late to gain exp for him.

Hyperion, remember that in the end of chapter 27 Eliwood should be at level 20 because he will be promoted automaticaly.

Mathew promotes with a fell contract and he loses hability to steal/open crests. He doesn't turn out to be good promoted because speed caps too soon, but is a little better than Jaffar (wich have the same class) mostly because he supports Hector and Oswin (I never cared about support gains so don't know if is really better :D).

Just to clarify things, in Blazing Sword, thieves need Fell Contracts to promote. In Sacred Stones, the Ocean Seal will promote both pirates and thieves. 

And Matthew should never support Oswin.

Oh, I meant to say I used the Knights crest on Oswin.
I used the earth seal to promote Florina Xd and then I used the pegasus/wyvern seal to promote Heath.

IIRC, I sold one of the seals XD, because I didn't realize I HAD to keep them for characters, lol. I always sold them in PoR/RD because they were useless. Lol, I'm so stupid. I'll be more careful in my second play through.

What do you guys recommend. Should I go straight into Hector's Hard Mode? Or should I do Lyn's?
Also, how does the funds ranking work in this game? I just want to know for future reference if I ever want to do a perfect run.

funds is total wealth, including items. So never sell anything. So if you have a sword worth 600, and sell it for 300 you lose 300 off of your total funds.

Always go through Lyn's mode first. It's best for setting up characters for HHM and doing well in it gives you a White Gem which will help your Funds rank.

Yeah I find that geme a little harder but like all FE, strategy and balance ( don't let the paladin make all the work) will be your best allies.

Anyway.

I was at Anime North for the last few days. During the last day I was in the dealer's room and went to one of the tables where they were selling video games - I found Sacred Stones in a wrapped box for forty bucks.

My fiance didn't go for it, though.

How bad should I feel for not talking her into it?

Well depends on your taste, this game is a little diferent than the others. The player can go to some completed chapters that has monsters (redeads?) in it instead of soldiers and sometimes is not an option as they block the path. At some point of the game apears on map a Tower with some levels (7?) full of monsters good to evolve your characters, but this takes too long to have satisfying results and if in the last ones some character dies you guess what happens ;). Soldiers from the first chapters are gradually replaced by monsters as we progress through the game, this is the main reason i didn't like Sacred Stones. It didn't feel like good old fire emblem as, for example, weapon triangle is not necessary and if you have a good light magic user he kill every monster with one shot.

I played it twice to the finish and never got it again. After this i played fire emblem 6 and it was a better experience.

Keep in mind that this is just my opinion, the game is not bad at all but to me is the worst Fire Emblem i played. 

I was wondering. Is the DS remake of the original worth my time? My body needs more Fire Emblem!