All in all I think anyone buying a GPU at any point over the past 5 years would have made profit, as it seems there is always a new coin or algorithm introduced to replace the ones that die off or go asic. Some months you may only be making a few dollars or cents per GPU profit, but then it seems every 6 month or so something new hits where you can hit hardware ROI in as little as 30 days.
If we will discuss like you, than with antminer 9 over the past 6 years you would make great profit.
As everyone knows it depends on electricity costs, hashrate and hardware itself. I wouldn't risk buying GPU's now but if you have much free time and nerves than find altcoins and try mining one of them which is profitable because in litecoin and other similars coins difficulty is increased. Also try to use calculator of your altcoin you are going to mine and you will see how much will be your profit in today's situation.