A cash grab is what they did with the sloppy re-release of Chrono Trigger, which is vastly inferior to the original game on original hardware - or running a ROM Hack with bug fixes (or even just the game as it released originally) in a cycle-accurate emulator.

Remaking a game from the ground up with AAA production values is a costly and complex endeavor - and a risky one too, even with a titles as popular as Final Fantasy VII, since there is no guarantee fans will enjoy it. Almost the same kind of high risks as with any other game production of this sort of scale apply here. And while I haven't played these remakes, their reception seems to indicate that they are anything but cynical cash grabs.