It was better than Crusade from the start. The only thing Crusade has on SSF2 is the fact that it's complete.
Crusade isn't anywhere near complete yet. Half the characters aren't in, a ton of stages have yet to be added, and Online and Adventure Mode are still on the list. Among other things.
And in case you didn't notice, even TSON admitted that the current version of Crusade has better gameplay than the current (public) version of SSF2. And I never said that SSF2 doesn't have much better graphics than Crusade (in fact I've openly admitted SSF2 kicks Crusade's butt graphically), and it might stay that way for a while (if I ever get my spriting team to start redoing characters, although new ones are the main priority right now).
I don't understand why it's difficult to look at both games and simply see that they offer different things. SSF2 has far superior graphics, a large and dedicated dev team, and a more diverse roster (going by first to fourth party and such). Crusade has (at the moment) gameplay and physics that feel closer to an official Smash game and a much larger roster.
Again, I'm going to be quiet now because I'm starting to ramble and I don't want to spark a SSF2 vs Crusade discussion here.