I agree except for the fact that Zidane loses points not for the lack of a journey, but some forced bad ones.
I don't care for his forced romance, and while the aforementioned popular scene is cool, it's also really dumb. It's not character development. It's some minor regression and then back to status quo.
I feel like he handled Vivi's identity crisis great but then somehow crumbles when he's up against the same thing.