Actually, I can see how it would work. It puts Rufus as having been born around the same time the Jenova experiments started out (which gives a good reason for Old Man Shinra to have been distracted away from his kid, even if wealthy-bastard brand sociopathy wasn't one already), and also gives him a good reason to resent the SOLDIER experiments as well. The other factor that needs to be mixed into the whole thing is Old Man Shinra's rather strong case of Dictator Decay - he has a son who can take over the business, which means he has not only a successor, but also a threat in the family. So I suspect a lot of Rufus' lack of maturity is because he's not been allowed to grow up (in much the same way the various SOLDIER experiment Generals weren't allowed to grow up either - or at least, not to attain full psychological maturity) because part of reaching full psychological maturity is recognising yourself as truly separate from the people who raised you. And therefore, not bound to their goals.
Rufus would have been getting a lot of that pressure from his father, but also a subtle form of it from the Turks. Plus, of course, he has more money than God (being a Shinra) and therefore has no need to really grow up either - the Peter Pan effect of lots of money is noticeable in the current crop of US financier-billionaires like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, where the things they're "investing" in are basically 1:1 scale kids toys.
Also Tseng being much the same age does strike me as believable - he's an active service agent, which means he's very much at the peak of his physical and mental prowess, which automatically means he can't be much older than about thirty-three, maybe thirty-five at most. Tseng putting Rufus in charge of everything is very much a function of "people in crisis situations tend to revert to the patterns of thinking they associate with stability", and if you've grown up in a country with a hereditary monarchy (like Wutai) then you're going to be looking at the next in line to the throne and trying to groom them into what you want, because that's really your only option. I would suspect Tseng is hoping the muting effect of the Shinra corporate bureaucracy will work its magic on turning "giant edgelord who's far too impressed with himself" into something bland and acceptable to the public by the time the orders filter themselves out from head office into the wider world. (I mean, it turns Old Man Shinra from "standard issue corporate-bastard sociopath" into "father of his country" in the publicity, so it could presumably work similar magic on Rufus).
Finally, let's not forget that the world of Final Fantasy 7 is definitely a dystopian one. So having the absolute ruler of a large chunk of the world being an absolute manchild who hasn't grown up fits in perfectly there.
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Rufus would have been getting a lot of that pressure from his father, but also a subtle form of it from the Turks. Plus, of course, he has more money than God (being a Shinra) and therefore has no need to really grow up either - the Peter Pan effect of lots of money is noticeable in the current crop of US financier-billionaires like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, where the things they're "investing" in are basically 1:1 scale kids toys.
Also Tseng being much the same age does strike me as believable - he's an active service agent, which means he's very much at the peak of his physical and mental prowess, which automatically means he can't be much older than about thirty-three, maybe thirty-five at most. Tseng putting Rufus in charge of everything is very much a function of "people in crisis situations tend to revert to the patterns of thinking they associate with stability", and if you've grown up in a country with a hereditary monarchy (like Wutai) then you're going to be looking at the next in line to the throne and trying to groom them into what you want, because that's really your only option. I would suspect Tseng is hoping the muting effect of the Shinra corporate bureaucracy will work its magic on turning "giant edgelord who's far too impressed with himself" into something bland and acceptable to the public by the time the orders filter themselves out from head office into the wider world. (I mean, it turns Old Man Shinra from "standard issue corporate-bastard sociopath" into "father of his country" in the publicity, so it could presumably work similar magic on Rufus).
Finally, let's not forget that the world of Final Fantasy 7 is definitely a dystopian one. So having the absolute ruler of a large chunk of the world being an absolute manchild who hasn't grown up fits in perfectly there.