Great thread, rmk, I can relate. Although I haven't gone nearly to the lengths you have, I got to the point where I finally said 'enough' and just started enjoying the music & movies. It's tempting to look at the latest stuff out there and lust after it, but once you reach a certain level of performance, spending tons more money just doesn't get you enough increase in quality to justify the expenditure. Of course, that money point is different for each of us, but I just have too many competing demands for my income to rationally spend any more on audio at this time. I derive a lot of daily pleasure from my system, and spend more time enjoying the music than lusting after the 'latest' technological advances.
Of course, that's just until next month...