The "Oooh Soft" scene is more responded with a simple kick by Garnet knocking his hand off. He then tries to apologize, and Garnet tries to hold back her obvious fury, which Zidane is quick to notice (something like "Zidane, I trust you!" *she leaves* "...I get the feeling she doesn't quite trust me yet...")
Zidane's pervertedness, in any event, does sort of end late Disc 2, where he and Garnet start actually seriously developing some romance (its around Black Mage village where they have their first real "touching" scene.), so the second half of the game, that aspect of Zidane is almost played down entirely (actually, Eiko's the one who starts acting more like that way, but in a more innocent, child like manner, naturally, and its pretty much entirely centered around a childish Zidane crush.)
For what its worth, Dissidia does toss this aspect of Zidane in, but downplays it some. Its mostly just him making cracks like "I'd rather fight you than have to face a lady" when giving his reasons for tackling Garland over Ultimecia (convenient excuse to get Squall separated from Garland so he can have his rival fight with Ultimecia really <.<) Interestingly enough, I don't think there's a single plot scene where he interacts with Terra...its almost like they PURPOSELY avoided that scenario <_<
The DL does overplay Zidane's pervertedness, but its totally for comic relief value. There are obviously bigger perverts in the DL based off their home game *waves to Zelos*, but Zidane's been around longer than most, and yeah, that aspect of his personality I guess sticks out to people, so he was sort of flanderized that way in the DL.
FOR WHAT ITS WORTH...
I think Sage is downplaying Zidane's role in FF9 some. One thing the game does reflect on in the ending is the way he influenced most of the cast. The whole ending is essentially everyone talking about him and the impact he had on each. The core plot may not be about him until late game, but he definitely was serving an actual purpose besides just being a random PoV.
