No, I had not known about it. After seeing the nearly 2 gig download size, I don't think I'll ever have to worry about it. 
What are you on, dial-up? It took me about an hour to download it - even with a regular DSL connection, you could just leave it on overnight and it'd be complete. Or is space an issue? I don't know what kind of computer you have, but my computer is pretty outdated (I can't even run some of the newer SNES emulators like bsnes without lag, and I still can't play PSX games on here) and this game runs nearly flawlessly. After all, FF7 PC was originally built for computers made in 1998. Then again, you'll need to either have the original FF7 PC cd's, or have the binaries on your computer, which are around 2.5 gb altogether. I can see where hard drive space can be an issue.
Anyway, I'd recommend this patch to anyone who is willing to download it.
Here's a video from the hardcore mod:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYH-xLfg1icSpeaking of YouTube videos, what happened to the forum's embeddable video feature?