I made a mistake. Sorry, I got confused there. Posted the reply when I haven't had enough sleep. Anyway, what I meant to say was that the ATI 9200 is a Direct X 8-based videocard. You can still install the DX9 drivers but if you will try to play a true DX9-based game, you'll get a video error because the hardware doesn't really support programmable pixel and vertex shaders higher than DX8.1. I'm not sure about the ATI 9250 though, but I think it's also a DX8-based card since it's a somewhat higher version of the 9200.
Again, try a true DX9-based game like Warhammer: Dawn of War and see what happens.
Sorry to hear that you spent over 2k when your intent was to play DX9-based games but my rule of thumb is, if I can't spend well over 10k for a new videocard, better spend the money somewhere else. Otherwise, I won't really see a significant increase in performance. But the good news is that true DX9-based PC games are very few since the programmers take into account the aging hardware of the purchasers. Heck, his Doom3 engine even runs on an ancient Riva TNT!