Yeah don't blame you. I think one of the reasons for not liking some of the characters in the past is probably because we couldn't exactly...well, picture them in the ideas Square had in mind.
Like for example Heidegger. I absolutely did not like him back in FFVII, but that's probably because I couldn't exactly figure out what type of character he was due to zero emotions in FFVII for the PS1 along with zero voicing. We had to use our own imagination on how we like to think some of these characters were. Like when Rufus told Heidegger to stop that horse laugh in the FFVII original, I immediately thought Heidegger was some gnome who probably talks like Aris. Some are more obvious than others of course, but characters like that were completely not in the idea I had before.
Some of it is also thanks to TeamFourStar to add their own twist and personality to it, especially Scarlet and i'm just like "Wow I.... never pictured Scarlet as this sort of woman who laughs in rich status, is that how she is really in the game? was I wrong about Scarlet this whole time? maybe in the FFVIIR?", despite that it fits extremely well. In FFVII I pictured her as a woman with a calm demeanor, but it was still somewhat hard to figure out because everything was written text.
If we had to get technical, we never really experienced FFVII before when it came to anything exactly emotional besides Aerith's death, we had to use our own imagination to create emotions. Not sure about anyone else, but i'm actually pretty hype for it's release. Can't wait. Previously I decided to wait and hoping there was a demo for it, but it sold me on getting the game. Pre-ordered.