Nadia from my blue sky story, age 30 or so. Leaving the group to go back home after being gone for nearly 10 years.

I've always like the idea of giant riding birds. I feel that the chocobo is too iconic of the Final Fantasy games though and ruins any other use of birds in general. However, the cuteness pollution has made a very distinct chocobo for the series and has left the more realistic renderings open to use in other stories. Final Fantasy Tactics for the ps1 really tried to un-cute without making the character repulsive and I liked that because you could still identify it.
There have been a few series with big birds, like Valley of the Wind (I don't know who invented it first, I dont care). Correction! both of them stole it from an old British fable from waaaay way back! They don't have much purpose other than horses but have a weird Galapagos bird look to their beaks, they look like they would eat big nuts or something, makes sense in the dry climate. I think for my own story I'd like to incorporate riding birds with different beaks per region of the country.

Also, think of how many turkey sandwiches you could get out of these friggn' things, awesome!