I've also now played another Final Fantasy game to the bitter end, chronicled here. (Same link as above, but it now goes to an index page. Sullla, you may feel free to link to it now. 
)
http://www.dos486.com/ff
On other points, I never really got into old-school PC RPGs. I've played a little ways into several, like Ultima I, Pool of Radiance, and Nethack, but never completed any. For me, the old-school Japanese console RPGs were always much more intuitive and enjoyable. Back in the day, I thoroughly learned and enjoyed FF1, Dragon Warrior 1, and the NES ports (by a Japanese company) of Ultima III and IV, and more recently the GBA port of FFV.
I'm not entirely sure what makes them so much fun, but there's probably a treatise to be written there somewhere...
)http://www.dos486.com/ff
On other points, I never really got into old-school PC RPGs. I've played a little ways into several, like Ultima I, Pool of Radiance, and Nethack, but never completed any. For me, the old-school Japanese console RPGs were always much more intuitive and enjoyable. Back in the day, I thoroughly learned and enjoyed FF1, Dragon Warrior 1, and the NES ports (by a Japanese company) of Ultima III and IV, and more recently the GBA port of FFV.
I'm not entirely sure what makes them so much fun, but there's probably a treatise to be written there somewhere...
I actually had the same idea, and have been kicking it around for at least a decade (I also planned to use the same party you did - for the same reasons), but never actually tried it in practice. Congrats on sticking things out to the conclusion.