You know, I don't know what I've never visited this thread, because I've played and beaten basically every Fire Emblem game
Dang. Respect. You must be a frigging master tactician by now with that many games under your belt.
I've personally only played 7 (Fire Emblem), 8 (Sacred Stones) and 11 (Awakening). (Oh, and the Shadow Dragon remake). I'll have to give 4 a try sometime, considering you think so highly of it.
Out of the ones I've played, I think I like 7 the best. It just felt right. Lyn is also probably my favorite Lord ever.
I have to say though, despite its flaws, I enjoyed the heck out of Awakening with all its fancy modern changes. The characters were all fun and quirky, unlike the ones in older games whose personalities felt kind of watered down, and the voice acting during fights really made it enjoyable to watch battles unfold (especially those amazing crit quotes).
Awakening was actually one of the reasons I bought a 3DS, and while I played and beat it, I've never been able to even look at it for a second playthrough. FE games have a history of having around 1 gimmick per game, and that's how it's always been, and Awakening basically took all the gimmicks from the previous 7 games and combined them together, plus it's own native gimmick. The problem with that is that only it's native gimmick (the buddy system) feels like it belongs, and all the others are mechanical non-sequiturs that actively detract from the experience. The other gimmicks worked in their games, because they were designed for them and they felt meaningful there, but not here; here they're just disconnected and don't have enough of a purpose to justify even being there. If anything, it was a grab to attract the attention of fans like *me* who'd buy the game purely on the "OH LAWDY THE CHARACTERS ARE HAVIN' BAY-BAYS AGIN!" factor, when in reality that particular mechanic added basically nothing to the overall enjoyment of the game, because it was a non-sequitur addition.
And as far as tactical prowess goes, in FE games it's about 25% skill, 25% patience, 25% preparation, and 25% pure luck, because you can't control things like accuracy, critical rate, ability activation, or stat gains from leveling up; and sometimes the game is just rude and goes "I'm spawning guys right here now without warning you, and they get a free turn on you. Oops, looks like one of your guys died, hope you're not a perfectionist LAWL!" but I guess that level of uncertainty just comes with the territory of being a videogame, if I wanted 100% victory based on nothing but strategic skill and no randomness whatsoever, I guess I'd be playing Chess instead.
In the future, I may never be able to play Fire Emblem Vs. Shin Megami Tensei, just because I don't own a Wii U, and I'm legitimately Salty about that, cause I love SMT too, and that just sounds like such a wicked sweet combination, and the trailers and stuff for it are simply so hype. I'm very salty.