I've just started carrying on after a few weeks break from it. I'm up to the part where I now have to go to the Temple of The Ancients and have just gone back to defeat Lost Number and get Vincent. I've left it till now rather than the earliest time like I normally do because when I attempted it then I got owned like a motherfukka. Wasn't so bad this time.
Here my current lot roughly;
Cloud (Knight): Cover
Barret (Blue Mage but will probably change now): Enemy Skill, Manipulate
Tifa (Monk): Counter Attack, Deathblow
Aerith (Red Mage): lightning, Ice, Fire, Earth, Restore, Heal, Barrier-All, Haste-All,
Red XIII (Black Mage): lightning-All, Ice, Fire-All, Earth, Poison, Gravity,
Yuffie (Ninja/Thief): Throw, Steal
Cait Sith (White Mage): Restore, Heal, Revive, Exit, Barrier-All, Haste-All,
Vincent (haven't yet decided, Red or Blue Mage?):
Cid (Dark Knight): Poison, Seal, Transform, Mystify, Destruct-Added Effect

I'm gonna try and do it so that no character has more than 4 commands at a time from now on. Meaning little, if at all, summon use.

I'm going to do the Wutai side-quest before the Temple. I think Rapps won't be difficult, I however do expect I'll get owned by the 2 Dragons, Red Dragon and Demon's Gate a few times later in the Temple though lol

Vincent would make a good red mage, his attack power is never too great and some of those enemy skills are a bitch to get hold of. Leave Barret with the enemy skill as your blue mage, unless it isn't working out

You can't get owned by Red Dragon, it's not the hardest fight in the world

As for the topic, I agree with what some-one said much earlier in the post, Materia gives creative freedom in the game, which is a rarity in the older games at least (FF-X has large amounts of freedom also).

Barrets magic sucks so it seems a waste to have him as a Blue Mage, need something to make use of his attack power. Then again I only really use a few of them anyways.

Unless you've been levelling, and arn't using Barriers, Red Dragons attacks can do some seirous damage. Infact he nearly KO'ed Aerith in one go (2HP left!). Not so much that he's hard, infact he is incredably easy, just need to keep HP up. However I think I'm a bit over leveled now as I pushed him aside easily as well as Demons Gate. They seemed easier this time than if I played it normally. First time I noticed the two Dragons that guard the Nail Bat could be defeated with Odin's 'Steel Bladed Sword' aswell. Now only if I did that every time....Ah well.

I want Leviathan before Jenova-LIFE, so I may have to break the rules with Yuffie a bit just to get passed the Pagoda. Or not. Its only 'cos I just got an Elemental Materia to level 2 that I want to do Jenova-LIFE with having only one character taking damage, as I don't think Ive done that before lol

I actually found the Demon's Gate boss too hard for where it is, and compared with Red Dragon.

As for Jenova.LIFE there is a really easy way of defeating it at any level since all of it's attacks are water element. Simply equip one character with "water ring" (I think it's called that) and then after it runs out of MP, restore the other characters and keep fighting.

Demon's Gate ain't too bad. Just use Bahamut and normal attacks whilst protected by Barrier. Heal when needed.

Water Ring does make it easy. Equip it on someone and then the level 2 Elemental Materia paired with Leviathan on somebody else and then you've got two who can't die. Can't find a way for the third so oh well

I didn't realise you could pair elemental with summon materia

Yeah, as long as they actually have an element written in yellow under their name of course. It's the only way to have Holy, Water and Wind onto your attack or defense I think seeing as there is no actual magic Materia for them.

Most interesting, might have to try some experiments

I never used sommons to much in the game unless that particular elemant was really useful. except KOTR