They are roughly equal imho.
The opportunity to completely re-write notes and syllabi for JAR taking full advantage of multimedia made the teaching better.
The CAA system had the advantage that instructors were expert in what the exams contained. That was lost initially when JAR came into force. It is slowly coming back.
Meaning that - on balance - the current training regime is better than the CAA one of yesteryear.
Whatever.
People who took the old exams will claim they were harder and vice versa.
WWW