I have encountered this enough, or at least a variant of it, often with people who drift to the more elitist side of things who enjoy telling me the only reason I don't think FF9 is one of the best entries in the series is because I jumped on the ship with FF7 and have absolutely no appreciation for / awareness of the classic series. Sad to say this has fueled some serious subconscious bias against the title for me over the years.

That said, the majority of people I know who absolutely adore the game seem to have grown up with it, generally being one of the first titles in the series they played, and they tend to be pretty live and let live about things, though I can't imagine them not being annoyed by other titles being tossed out whenever they try to share what they like about IX, as Shopkeeper mentioned.

Also, I've noticed it is oddly hip to bash on FF7 in particular, with only 2 really catching flak to a somewhat comparable degree, and I suspect that's what you are seeing in that Kotaku article, so I wouldn't think of that as FF9 fans so much as pandering.