Well, I explained my opinion on it in the GameFaqs thread. Basically, when I was first playing this game, I found that area hard. My general approach to the game is to spam Fight all the time, except when the monster is hard to hit and/or highly defensive toward physicals. And yes, I realize that the game is practically beating you over the head with the notion of using Magic. But using Magic makes everything very easy, other than a few bosses which are well-prepared for such.
Anyway, the main reason I found it hard was a lack of preparation (as I genuinely didn't know that Celes was going to be alone, and had not prepared for the WoR at all). So, when I found myself as a solo character in a world where monsters use status attacks much more often (which I didn't know until I got hit with those attacks, of course), I found it a bit hard. As a result, I generally rent a Chocobo as fast as I can just to avoid all those fights. Once I have 2-3 characters, I no longer have the fear of annihilation, so I change my strategy a bit. The thing of it is, the Storm Dragon was the first of the legendary 8 that I fought even on that first attempt, and while it was a grueling battle, I beat on the first attempt. After that, everything else was pretty much cake.
