The reason why I think Cloud needs to not be set as the protagonist is because his character arc vastly undermined the whole narrative they set up in the first place. Barret is the leader of an impassioned group of resistance fighters trying to reclaim what little is left of nature from the environmentally destructive and hyper-capitalist Shinra corporation. I'm not saying like, entirely remove Sephiroth, but at least play him off as a minor antagonist representing the side effects of the injustices Shinra gets away with, rather than a showstealing Kefka-alike.