So, loving the changes so far, and figured I'd throw out some thoughts. (I just got to Cosmo Canyon)
Full disclosure, I did not read all the preceding pages. There were too many. So there is a chance some of what I'm about to mention is already known. Anyway...
1. The text that appears during fights when someone speaks goes by way too fast. If I am not expecting it I don't get a chance to read it. For example, I recently defeated a boxer enemy, and I have no idea what happened at the end of that fight, but someone said something. I wonder if this is something on my end, because this is a very noticeable issue.
2. The fight with Reno and Rude where a unit is paralyzed was strange. I tried to use remedy on the paralyzed unit and also tried to attack him to break it. I don't remember what happened with the remedy, but attacking caused my ordered unit to attack reno instead. I'm guessing I'm allowed to target him for the action, but not actually allowed to perform the action on him. If this is the case, it might be less confusing to simply have the unit removed from battle completely, like the Zolom's tail whip.
3. Dyne did not attack me after his first attack. A message kept popping up saying "MP depleted" or something to that effect.
4. Most accessories are borderline useless. This was also true in vanilla FF7. Immune to sleep/darkness/whatever? Those situations are so specific that they won't help unless you already lost because of that ailment and are retrying the fight. Additionally, those effects can already be accomplished via materia + added effect (I would assume, I never used it, because as previously mentioned, useless).
5. This is my personal gripe but: stat modifiers on materia. Without modifiers, characters have some (not much) variation between each other stat-wise. Barret is not as competent as Aeris at magic, but is still useable for casting if you need him (especially for spells which are infrequently cast or don't care about the magic stat). He compensates with higher HP and attack. With the modifiers on, putting materia on Barret will turn him into Aeris stat-wise, removing what little differentiation there was between them. Off the top of my head I can't think of any negative consequences for taking these modifiers out. Do you have any reason for keeping them in?