Personally, I love Amano's artwork for FFIX. The game would've been considerably better of the characters and architecture had remained more true to his designs, in my opinion.
One of the reasons I preferred FFIX to VII and VIII was because it didn't take itself too seriously and incorporated a fair amount of humor into the cutscenes. I doubt the game would have been anywhere near as hilarious had it not looked like someone turned DK mode on.