I've heard many stories about how Aeris may not have been originally planned to die, and those of how the location of her death may also have been changed. It may have been a possibility, concidering how many people worked on the game. One thing to support this is the picture of Aeris standing before the Highwind, which she never did see during the game.

Gameshark codes allow you to "unofficially" bring Aeris back to life, and she even has some lines in the game even after her death. This is probably what gave the most weight to the hoax that she could be resurrected. It is possible that the decision to kill her off came during the production of the game when many of the character lines had already been programmed. All they would have to do then is seal them off so that nobody would ever know. There will always be many questions about Final Fantasy VII because so much drama is associated with it. Even people that say they hate the game because of Aeris' death are helping as much as those that praise the game. As long as questions go unanswered, rumors will spread.

I don't know who can agree with me on this, but I think that if Final Fantasy VII was a perfect game with every question answered and every plot idea settled, it would not be as famous as it is today. There will always be people who are furious about the game, as well as those who are wondering why. ~Dreydan

*P.S If you really want to see Aeris after her death, just play the G-Bike mini game or visit the church. She's also in Final Fantasy Tactics and Kingdom Hearts, but I don't believe them to be the real her. The one from FFT seemed to be from an alternate reality, and Kingdom Hearts seems to be too out of context to rationalize how any Final Fantasy characters fit into it. (Still a cool game though.)