Lots of people say that.. but just the same number say it sucked. I think it was the abrupt change from 7 and 8 into how 9 was.. just my opinion though..
DJ is exactly right..
I hated 9.. I could relate to cloud, and I could also relate to Squall.. But I just couldn't relate nor care about the monkey boy..
I still played it.. I even beat it.. But.. After I played it through .. Ignoring most of the side quests.. I never touched it again. 9 just felt like a kiddie game.. And I didnt like that at all.. The characters looked like they were targeted at a young audience, and so did the scenery .. It just felt wrong to me..
(minor spoilers for FF9/5/7 may follow, I tried to be as vague as possible though)
I dunno, I kind of liked the exaggerated style. though I'll admit I HATED Quina and Amarant. Ugh, tacked -on characters.
And as for the whole "relating to the characters" thing, I could relate to them, and that actually kind of made me like the games a little less. Well, Cloud anyway. Squall just made me want to hit him on several occasions. (I did NOT like that character, but that's another issue.) I'm a depressive person and yeah, it was kind of interesting to relate to cloud, but I don't play RPGs to play as myself, I play RPGs to well... role-play
Mind you, ff7 is still at the top, just because it finally broke the whole formulaicness of RPGs and decided to
a) have an incredibly flawed main character
b) kill off someone for emotional effect and story (FF5 did that too, but that wasn't really released here, plus honestly there wasn't much of a difference pre/post Galuf at least IMO)
c) play a lot of mind games with the gamer
(and Sephy is just cool, too)
FF9 had the more unrealistic style and some really memorable characters, because it delved into the same "coming to terms with reality" kind of dealie that FF7 did... plus I felt that even if it seemed a little more "childish" it had a lot of hidden depth in the characters, especially Vivi, Freya, Zidane and to a lesser extent Garnet/Dagger.
Just my take though.
My top 5:
i) Final Fantasy 7
ii) Final Fantasy 9
iii) Final Fantasy 5 (I love the job system, I really do)
iv) Final fantasy Tactics
v) Final Fantasy 6 (I know this is higher up on most people's lists, but I just couldn't get into it)
8 is somewhere down the bottom... but that's a whole nother rant
Yes, the tech demo was displayed during the Compilation of FF7 trailer viewing (unannounced, whereas the other releases shown were listed at the start of the viewing). And no, Square Enix isn't going to come out and say "no it will never happen" about a rumor that when left as it is only pushes the FF7 hype even higher. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though. 
7 is the best, and 6 comes after that.