In some aspects yes.
IX is my fave, overall the game is great, not much at fault.

But now I have a ps2 and have been playing XII for over a week straight... its that good... I decided not to finish X coz XII was so interesting. The combat system of XII is the best in the series, it reminds me of Secret of Mana which is my all time favourite... the combat is just so fun and customisable. I like/gotten used to XII's free/faster combat that I'm finding hard to go back to previous games and play through, due to the battles being somewhat slower and not as involved as XII. Unfortunately the music in XII is good but just background music and not memorable, where as IX the music was great and very memorable, to the point I can recall some part of the game to just about every song.

But both are my top 2, and are great games in their own way.