FFXII was boring to play because, once you set up your gambits just right, it no longer required any input from you besides just moving your party from fight to fight, right? I thought all the other FFs were boring for the same reason-- just, instead of having gambits, I would just set the cursor to remember my last command and mash the confirm button to get through any fight. FF combat can get boring way too easily (and Blitzball was no different-- even if you don't just spam Jecht Shot, it's easy to recruit players with stats that are like double everyone else's). FFXIII and FFXI are the only numbered FF titles where I couldn't fall asleep during combat and still win.
but you see, that's how all easy battles go, in any game. You might say that there are too many regular battles in FF games, or any old RPGs, but combat is still great, if in any challenging situation or against bosses. I mean, it's fun to play, combat feels fresh and new in every game, if we disregard FF12 problem for a moment, it's true for all FF games.
And Blitzball, yes, you can spam Jecht Shot and it makes you win most if not all your matches for some time, but then you get to really strong teams at some point and if you haven't trained your team, by spamming Jecht Shot all the time, you might not get even possibility to use it anymore. And you say like all good players are available all them time and at any given moment, and you surely remember that's not being the case, and recruiting good ones was a game on itself, with surprises, as some you thought being good, were good only at the start and then got worse as time progressed. It's complex minigame. But that's not what I was talking about. I can't understand all hate, because you can not play it at all if you choose, it's optional.
I do agree that FF13 combat is very enjoyable, only FFX-2 have even more fun combat.