Excellent example!
You're very right.
I would mitigate that a bit and say that it -still- looks like there is more room between the armrests/console and the fixed back of the seat in front on the CX seat vs. the AA seat. But the foot-hole looks uncomfortably cramped on the CX seat and I've never found it to be.

I received an email this morning from someone who's intimately familiar with these new seats and says, essentially, "these people are all off-- you can't judge it from the photo" (and, really, you can't argue with that second part.)

Hopefully we'll have a real report before the weekend and some of the "experts" who have condemned this seat as a disaster-- based on a single photo-- will learn from the experience.