Fair warning: This will be a stick in the mud comment for most people, but it will be honest.
I love Final Fantasy VII. I have often said it was my generation's "Gone With The Wind", that first time we realized a game could be something more than twitchy shooting or jumping and could deliver an emotional narrative that touched us inside. Of course, looking back on the hackneyed dialogue and angsty teenage relationships of the characters from a modern perspective skews how you see it. You have to bear in mind that at the time it was a profoundly progressive game in many ways that jumped the quality of games ahead by several feet. When it was released it was in a class of its own, and it left a mark on just about everyone who played it which is why it still shows up near the top of "Best Games Ever Made" lists all over the internet from time to time.
Having given this perspective, I will have to ask you forgive me for feeling skeptical about the remaster. As was already stated in this thread, SquareEnix has said they're only doing it to silence fans who have called for it for decades. That's a pretty poor reason to do anything and the attitude with which it was said tells me they may not be exactly bringing their A game to this.
It's also worth noting that we're discussing SquareEnix here and not SquareSoft. The people who made that company the juggernaut it once was, those who made Final Fantasy VII, are mostly gone now. This is the company that brought us the graphically pretty, but narrative-poor, characterization free Final Fantasy XIII and were so clueless about how poor their decisions were that they thought they were going to make it a franchise unto itself. I have exactly zero faith that the people who made those decisions even understand the fundamental basics of what made VII a classic and how to properly curate those features as they revamp it.
Furthermore, as horribly dated as the visuals are, I remember several places where they were integrated into the narrative in a way that elevated the game, not despite its visual ugliness, but in good faith with its visuals. Take the Cloud cross-dressing scene for instance; in a gritty, high def remaster, the cartoony fun of that scene isn't going to come off as innocent and light hearted. It's going to come off as awkward, unamusing, and potentially hurtful to some people. Let's not forget the world has changed around Final Fantasy VII. The game is a product of its times and there's no taking those times out of the game without removing the heart of the experience. If you're going to do that, you may as well just make a new game because it wont actually be Final Fantasy VII no matter what the title marquee says.
I think given the status, design choices, cultural mores of the times it was created in, and the state of SquareEnix at this time, that this is an ill conceived move that will only serve to polarize fans of the franchise and sully the good name of one of gaming's most venerable titles.
I expect this will be an opinion few people share, but I appreciate you all hearing me out!