Audiolab, Rowland integrated - nothing in between?

I had an 8000LX and it was a pretty decent budget offering. I loved it for the time I had it and ran it with Mourdant Short and Dynaudio speakers. When it came time to upgrade it was quickly shown up as somewhat gray and limp compared to other more costly options. Amoungst others I tried the Q/M combo (the later silver versions) which injected life and drive, great rockers if lacking in transparency and finesse and finally settled on Musical Fidelity. The A5 intergrated was a little recessed in the midrange, a little soft but still a big step on from the 8000LX and I settled on an A5 pre/pwr combo which I thought a fabulous combo for the money particularly when bought ex-dem from a dealer. I'm sure many of the amps mentioned would show the Audiolab a very clean pair of heels but if you're still enjoying it why worry, just keep on enjoying.

Well, I doubt that many use this Audiolab with $500 power cord, $800 interconnects and $1600 speaker cables. If not, they have no idea of how much performance you can extract from it. But..I think I got out of it everything or almost everything it is capable of.
I decided to get Rowland integrated or older separates when I can afford them. In the meantime I'll try to fine tune the analog fron end. Actually the system doesn't sound too bad at all.
Thank you everyone for your posts.

As some of you recommended, I decided not to wait for years to be able to afford Rowland or Gryphon and got Redgum RGi120. Great stuff. Before buying I talked to them in Australia. The company appears to be in a good shape. They replied next day and were quite helpful.