This forum has pro-bandwagons for IX and anti-bandwagons for VII, so I doubt you'll get a lot of IX hate here.

IX is a perfectly good game. In most cases, people will look at the character designs and decide it's bad before they even start, which is just silly. I don't know if that's what's happening with your friends, but probably. If that is the case, just smack them with an otter's corpse and take a nap. All problems solved!