Many seem to be talking about their last system .

Two kids in college has me off the upgrade cycle for now.  It will be interesting to see what the market looks like when I get to come back up for air in a couple of years.

I understand what you all are saying but I protest. Personally, I am not going to stop, not only to improve the sound but also to maintain the audiophile tradition and connection to the roots.
As for the availability of funds, well, it is always a factor but rarely the most significant one unless you accept nothing but the very best and new. Yeah, source material is what it is, even more motivation to get the most out of it.
However, younger generation doesn’t appear to be interested in all this. We have no-one to pass it on to - that’s bad. Better exploding universe than shrinking.

I quit this child thingie long time ago. 
The number of vintage receivers, amps and players that I have allows me to swap them from time to time for different sound without investing any extra penny.

It’s cyclic. They’ll get it back. but probably not until most of us are gone.

In the meantime, Digital and it’s problems are misrepresenting music, and that is part of the problem. Subtle to the conscious mind but the lack of some important aspects of what pulls us in, for almost 20 years, wiped out an entire generation of aficionados before they had a chance to exist. The same effect can be found in class D amps, in my experience.

It’s not just the changing landscape it’s a problem of going sonically backward - all for that modern convenience.

Show me a ’real’ audio manufacturer these days, who wants to build with delta-sigma type dacs. Most are moving out of it as fast as they can, for discrete R-2-R dac types. More expensive... but far more correct in what we hear. Back to what digital had before the delta-sigma dac types came along.

Right. But not backward, that wouldn't be the worst because you could reverse, theoretically, it is simply nowhere.