Dude, don't apologize for FF7 being at the top of your list. My absolute favorite RPGs are Final Fantasy 7 and Chrono Cross. FF8, 6, Panzer Dragoon Saga and Chrono Trigger come close. There is Xenogears. FF9 was great. FF10 had an awesome world and story (awful voice acting). Other notable games from the SNES/PS1 glory days like FF4 and Breath of Fire are worth mentioning.

I don't think you're going to like Persona or Shin Megami stuff. I am sort of getting a sense of the type of thing you're looking for. I loved Skyrim, but it may not be what you're looking for in this case; the story is good, but has much less of a character driven focus and pacing is wildly different. Mass Effect series was incredible, but the fact that you aren't into it is another clue. 

You want something that reads more like an epic book, where you are along for the ride. You yearn for the twinkling sound of materia, the way you felt when you first saw the sprawling overworlds in full polygonal beauty whilst epic music by the likes of Yoshinori Mitsuda or Nobuo Uematsu grabs hold of you and fills your anxious heart with ambition and your head with steam.

Sadly, those days may have passed us by, at least until the next BIG thing. The jump from 8bit to 16bit, and 16bit to 32bit was huge. Much of the wonderment we felt was because we were so blown away with the leap we were witnessing right before our eyes. This has nothing to do with superficial aesthetics, though. It simply allowed the developers to create something that much more engaging, and they were excited to do so. Those games had so much heart. There is a reason that era of is commonly reffered to as the golden age of RPGs.

Went off on a bit of a tangent- I'm just trying to get you to put it all in perspective. That next Chrono Cross or FF7 may not actually be out there right now, in this gen. I certainly haven't found it.

But after ALL that being said,

I highly recommend Lost Odyssey and Xenoblade. Give The Last Story a shot as well.