Has Radicalizing the Rig Led to Revolutionized Listening?

I'm with you from both angles, gear and age.  As your gear sounds more natural, it's more enjoyable to listen to natural sounds than synthetic ones, especially with voices.

When I was young, I wanted excitement from life and my music.  Now, I find myself seeking calm more often. 

Follow your tastes. But yeah, I agree with you. Though the physical act necessary to set a guitar string in motion does allow the electric guitar to attain an unmistakable acoustic instrument integrity/veritas/credibility, in the main acoustic instruments simply possess more primal mojo. Acoustic instruments just have more life in them. They better convey artistic expression, i.e., what's inside. And of course it doesn't hurt that an excellent audio system has the wherewithal to deliver a good deal of that life.

I’m 60, and indeed for a few years there as my system-building phase neared completion about 5 years ago, I too shifted more and more toward the acoustic. But, about a year ago, I sorta rediscovered my rock roots all over again (this time with the newly finished dream system). At first just some select titles, then it was almost like a dam broke that I didn’t realize was there. I had worked hard from the start to get a setup that could do any genre equally well (not easy), but it was paying off well.

Maybe going back to my musical beginnings is aging, too?? Can’t say for sure. It was almost like I was unconsciously rebelling against the act of trying to ’think too much’ about the listening experience. But, my (finally) having a rig that doesn’t editorialize at all about whatever material I could ever want to listen to, was the difference-maker to me.

Don’t know where my musical tastes will go next, but I doubt my music genre explorations days are behind me.