I actually named my gold chocobo Goldie. =X I'm very creative.
Anyway, I did all that stuff on the
second run, not the first. I like to play without aides the first time I play a game, go in completely blind and spoilerless. Then when I play the second time I'll get all the hints and walkthroughs and whatnot and do as much as I can.
Nope, I never got Vincent the first time I played FF7.
I have played up to Gold Saucer to get both the Yuffie and Barret dates, with the help of a guide somewhere. I think that was still back in the 90s.
The only exception is that optional forest dungeon where you have to make a bunch of jumps in certain orders and stuff. I didn't do that until recently, like within the past year.