I think your ecology textbooks are a few decades out of date. Monoclimax theory is obsolete[0]. Its much more accurate to consider the equilibrium state than to imagine an ecosystem as working towards some idealized climax. And "better" is a very subjective human-centric term - its utterly meaningless without context (e.g. this ecosystem is better for supporting higher levels of biodiversity). Try asking a beachgoer and a skier whether summer or winter is "better" and see how far that scientific discussion gets you.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climax_community#Continuing_us...