Oh wow, I had no idea Kevin Van Ord left last year. It's like the old 1up thing where everyone left to go work at a game company because they saw the ship sinking.
Haven't listened yet, but this reads like someone that probably hasn't actually revisited the game since 1998.
At the time it -was- a monumental improvement over the localization for FF7 a few months prior, which I am guessing he is recalling more than the actual quality of the translation.(Anything would look outstanding next to FF7's localization though...) The updated retranslation in the PSP "Lions" port was a vast gulf in cogency though. Did Peter bring that up?