I feel like you've listed so many pivotal, game-making strengths that you kind of DO entirely get the love for it.
Presentation-wise, it's the strongest FF game, IMO. Timeless visuals/designs, art direction, music, interfaces, etc. Charming, well defined characters, without anything else being straight up broken, terrible, or moronic. That's going to be enough to win a lot of people over.
and it is a good game, I am not arguing that.
But what I don't get is why some people put it above the other FF releases of that time, I just don't see what destinguishes it from VII, VIII or even X to make it that much better.