Yeah, it's typically used to differentiate the "cool girls" from the more traditionally girly ones. I think Aerith and Tifa both get that treatment depending on one's view of traditional femininity. Like Tifa is so much better for being a fighter and not wearing pink girly dresses, or Aerith is better for being outspoken and not being quiet and nurturing. All comes back to the same old sexist idea of there being a wrong way to be a woman
Anyway, yeah I already got the suspicion while playing Remake that they were leaning a lot harder into Cloti this time around (hard not to notice some big changes when playing practically side-by-side with the OG) but they absolutley could have taken the story in another direction if they wanted to. It's just that Rebirth very blatantly did not take that chance, and now the only path to a Clerith endgame would include either the devs taking time they do not have to undo Zerith and Cloti and giving Zack and Tifa some other rewarding storyline, or just tossing those characters aside like they mean nothing. Neither seems likely to me