I didn't want to post again here but my friend Sakura is making me want to. SE made a point some time back in their TikTok and they stuck with it:
In this game, Cloud has always treated Tifa and Aerith very differently. With Aerith, he's been kind, but not always. He's always treated her as a friend. With Tifa though, it's heavy flirting, intimate moments, legit romance drama right at the start, 2 confessions (!! one in Gongaga when he repeats Sephiroth's words, the other in their date) with Sephiroth preparing act 3 by driving a wedge between them two. It's no wonder that even journalists have pointed out at the blooming romance between the two.
For Aerith's date, I think that if you only see it, it can be seen as romantic; but when you see Tifa's date, you're supposed to recontext that as "friendship". In fact, it's a sad scene, where Aerith is still grieving and I think the reason why Cloud interlocks their fingers is because he feels that she wants a "romantic date with Zack". He's no Zack so he won't let her grab his arm and be all over him, but the interlocked fingers is the most "romantic gesture" he can give her so he will because she needs comfort. This is also why she interlocks fingers with him at the end, because he needs comfort and since they already did it, she feels she can do it - he doesn't reciprocate though, he's too far gone.
When you see Tifa's date, by comparison, in both the play (the twirl lmao, but also the hand holding and smiling at each other) and the gondola (where he looks absolutely determined to get the kiss he didn't in Gongaga), yeah. When Cloud really wants something, he gets it.
In Aerith's world, the dream date is so much interespeced with Zack's scenes that I saw a streamer going "yeah, I know, I'm not Zack" when he got the photographer's comment about them lacking passion (and I think he does like Aerith and CA lol, while not being a shipper he does enjoy them). This date is the culmination, to me, of showing why romantically the two don't really mesh: she's thinking "alright he is not his true self, but he must be close to Zack" (only to discover at the end that... he's more like Cloud than Zack) while Cloud is simply not interested in her romantically. I think most of all, Aerith needs a sunny character like Zack to shine, so Cloud's personality doesn't really make her the greatest tbh.
More importantly, does anyone realise the intent of Nojima insisting to write chapter 14's resolution scene for Aerith, knowing he'd write this date as well with it? The intent of that man, really, truly, is incredible.
I consider the dream date and Aerith's death to be back to back before chapter 14 Aerith appears to Cloud in Remake. So basically she learns in chapter 14 that he does only like her as a friend (errr Aerith sweetie, that was VERY visible the whole game...), dies and she's still "digesting" the news, so to speak, trying to sort out her own feelings that were also an illusion when she meets him again. This is why she muses and when Toriyama left out that the "don't fall in love with me" was also for herself, I was like "damn but that's really a very strong reaction there, not wanting to fall in love with Cloud?". And this is the reason why; the illusion she fell for quite didn't match with the idea she had of him and while she liked this guy, and thought it was love, in the end? Not so much. She loved an illusion, so is this really love? And that's something she only realised in her dream date, really little time before her old self called her back.
To me Nojima's goal is very clearly "at all times, Zack is by her side". I think Zack is her Promise Land and we will see it in part 3 (and that's why he hasn't joined the Lifestream yet by ACC).