Mitch4t, I drove a clunker for most of my life too. As the economic well started to dry up I decided that I needed to have a vehicle that I could rely on for 10-12 years. Hence I sold all of my system and purchased newer cars for my wife and myself.
The thing that I'm finding very amazing is that as I downsize, the music still sounds surprisingly good. My current system lists for less than 20% of what my old system did, yet I'm amazed at how close it gets sonically. Maybe all of them "Big" improvements that I heard over the years weren't so big after all. No, it's not quite as good as my old big rig, but I didn't realize just how steep the laws of diminishing returns have gotten.