You got my vote to move on.
I upgraded to TH9 a lot earlier than you and didn't regret it at all. With the extra spell, bigger camp, and AQ, farming got a lot easier for me, especially for DE since the AQ can usually snipe at the DE storage from outside the core of the base. And of course with the x-bows and extra defenses it was a lot easier to protect your loot.
So I had no problems playing catch up with my defense and troop upgrades in my early TH9 days. I stay around G2/G1 to farm for gold/elixir and I move up to C2/C1 for DE. I do a lot of revenges and switch my base to a trophy base to move up to Crystal quickly. TH sniping also helps.
Well good luck with your TH9 journey. Should be lots of fun. :)
