I agree that the battle slowdown killed it for me. The translation is better, and that's nice - but the port is pretty slipshod. Someone should ROM-hack the new translation into the old PSX version for the DEFINATIVE edition! or something
A lot of people seem to still like this version more, although I assumed before playing it that it was going to be rebalanced (it's not). This game needs rebalancing something ferocious. I don't know the number of people I've spoken to over the years with a story something along the lines of "yeah I really liked that game, but then I got to this one fight where it was literally impossible to beat because my party was made up of classes a,b, and c. The enemy would kill me in the first 3 turns no matter what and I was at a point that wouldn't let me backtrack to gain levels." That said, if you know about this going in, you can always keep multiple saves so you can go back 2-3 battles prior if stuck in that kind of situation (in order to level a new class) but honestly - is that a good solution? Nope. The game was great for when it was released but hasn't stood up to the test of time that well.
Aside from all of this, I must point out that it's soundtrack is absolutely amazing. AMAZING