So, riddle me this...
I have only been playing Final fantasy for about a year... I started with one and tried to work up chronologically, that didn't work so well. I loved the games I played 1-7 (only beat 1, 5, 6) so I don't really understand why some people don't really know much about ff 1-6 if they so damn good...

I know many people do actually know about the classics but it seems like more people love the newer games and haven't even thought of playing the classics.

I think the problem is simply because the majority of FF fans started with the later games in the series (a significant portion of fans rode in on the coattails of FFVII, with many others becoming interested after playing later titles like FFX and XIII). Not to mention the earlier FF games are considered more 'simple' than later ones, thus they are more difficult to hold the attention of younger players.

However, the Dissidia games have initiated something of a Renaissance with the pre-FFVII titles - it's exposed a whole new generation of players to the older FF titles, and shown them they're not quite so simple as they were once considered (after all, as you found out, they've very hard in terms of difficulty compared to later titles).

Maybe it's because of the publicity and fanboys.

P: Good promotion never fails, it attracts a lot of people to play new games because they don't need the old ones anymore.
F: "FFXIII is perfect, flawless, immaculate! Nostalgia gamers are gay, get out of here!"

Don't worry about the future of FF, a lot of fans want to play Bravely Default: Flying Fairy (looks like a classic Final Fantasy game) while Lightning's saga is being criticized for it's bad gameplay and story and FFVsXIII because it looks so gay, LOL.