The C9.25 being anything special is anecdotal. Celestron's shift in manufacturing from the USA to China is much more significant. Since that happened, there are a lot of reports of their SCTs in all sizes with good optics. Damian Peach once used a C9.25 but now uses a C14.
Regardless of what scope you use, what's most important is good collimation, good focus and good seeing
