I've always had mixed feelings about Persona 3.
When i played FES, I really didn't mind the combat, I more found issue with the ridiculously slow grind, but when I say I don't like FES' gameplay, its the social mechanics that I hate most. FES' (frequently) very bad slinks, reversing slinks, and forced romances are so infuriating to me, and apparently Makoto's route in Portable still keeps all these issues for some fucking reason, while Femc fixes them. I admit Portable's VN format is kind of lame, and P3 is still a grindy slog no matter what, but i believe Femc in Portable is an upgrade to FES in most aspects.
I don't wanna give story spoilers but I will mention, a lot of people despise the choices Femc can make and I feel the opposite (minus the grooming).
I'm a huge fan of P3's narrative, but I think it’s a bit heavy on the death and sadness, not like any Hashino game is particularly subtle anyways. So while I understand the "It's a game with themes!" argument, maybe i just don't really like those themes as much, and the positive perspective in the face of tragedy that Femc brings to the table is more meaningful to me.
I adore P3's character writing and i would be the last person to defend slinks as a replacement for that (i.e. 4 & 5). but with how many of them in FES fucking suck i couldn't say P3 has the best use of slinks until i played Portable, where only the best of them were kept + Femc's full S.E.E.S. slinks, which add a lot on top of the characters. I think this is the purpose social links should serve.

So the eternal curse of Persona 3 is that there will never be a definitive version and Reload is clearly not gonna change that, unless they make Persona 3 Reload Royal Red-Asshole Edition with Femc in four years or something.
In conclusion, I’ll really die behind Femc, her exclusion in reload is deterring, and I'm not really looking forward to have to play this video game again in a few months but alas i am the bearer of the curse. Glory to the people's republic of Atlus