This isn't anything against Black Mage 121's opinion, as it was one of the more reasonably put forward in this thread. However it was organised in a way that makes it easy to respond to for general purposes.

The battle system all comes down to opinion, I guess. Some like to be able to customize characters, whereas others prefer to have fixed abilities. If you ask me, the latter creates a bigger challenge.
It would create a bigger challenge if they had the bosses the same strength. They didn't, so it just makes it dull.

As for the mini-games, a large number of IX's were sidequests, as opposed to mini-games as such (Stellazzio being an example). However, the mini-games that were there were varied and rewarding. VII far surpasses IX in terms of sidequests, but it doesn't mean that IX's aren't fun.
Okay minigames. Card game, fun, pointless. Hippaul, dull, pointless. Skipping, timed version of Hippaul, dull, frustrating, pointless. Fight scene, fun, point, only once and in first hour.

I'll accept that IX doesn't give you as much freedom as some other games. But if 'freedom' is being forced to complete every single sidequest before disc 4, I'll pass, thank you very much
Err, theres only IX that I know of that does this. VII certainly didn't. VIII had one part of a sidequest that you had to do before disc four. VI did (very slightly), but the game was so open it would have been pretty hard not to. X didn't.