They don't like the encounter rates. It definitely got annoying at times, but the encounters and leveling up have been part and parcel for this genre of RPGs.
Personally I'm the delayed gratification type where I'll level up to a point where I steamroll all the bad guys in the main storyline. Even high encounter rate areas aren't bad when it's a one hit kill.
I'd do that pretty much every playthrough when I got to the woods where you find Yuffie. I'd farm limit breaks up to lvl3 on the groups of 5-6 little bug guys that you can run into. By the time I'd get my limits to 3 they'd all be pretty OP in terms of their level.
Personally I'm the delayed gratification type where I'll level up to a point where I steamroll all the bad guys in the main storyline. Even high encounter rate areas aren't bad when it's a one hit kill.