When I said FF7 was overrated, I didn't mean it was bad; I enjoyed it but I think a lot of people consider it the ultimate RPG simply because it was the first one they played. The materia system was horrible, every character was the same. This is why I like IX, each person has their own special skills (Quina owns, LV5 Death + Grand Dragon = uber leveling up). With FF8 the biggest problem was, as stated before, the Draw system; it's terribly boring spending 30 mins drawing magic from monsters in order to boost your stats. FFX is by far my favourite of the series, some great characters (Auron, Kimahri, Rikku), blitzball (most people don't like it but I must've spent at least 10 hours on it), status effects are actually useful, and they did away with the horrible ATB battle system (you can actually *gasp* strategize).
FFX>FF9>FF7>FF8