The sad thing is, I know that would completely screw up the themes of the game - what's the point of Julia and Laguna's story if not to set up Squall/Rinoa? aside from singlehandedly making the game better because Laguna improves everything he touches I think they just needed to give that whole concept a toss and rewrite the whole game.

Seifer/Rinoa would have been. I'm with you that I don't hate Rinoa as a character, I think she's cute, I just hate how her whole purpose is to hang off Squall's arm.