Thank you very much guys for the discussion and especially Zanasea for the insight! Pretty amazing. Can't wait to see Uematsu's biography, when it's released. Thank you so much for your work. Many fans, including me, will highly appreciate that.
As for the statements, it's pretty interesting indeed he had such bad memories of "Grand Finale". While it isn't one of my favorite orchestral arrangement albums of that period, it definitely isn't bad. But maybe Uematsu just hadn't enough personal input at that time where his career began, and so he wasn't satisfied.
Personally, I love the metapher about the baby and its fanzy clothes for composition and arrangement lol. It really fits