A somewhat but not entirely rhetorical question:

OH, the irony....

The tech did such a fantastic job on the amps that I’m gonna keep ’em after all. They have never sounded better and that’s with barely a few hours on the many new caps he installed. If a few days, I’ll roll in a brand new octet of matched 6550’s.

Not only that, but I just got my octal tube preamp back from a CLA, and dang, that thing is sounding super-sweet too. Hooked up to my "new" amps and I’m super happy. Gonna keep that as well. A big plus is that it's got a great phono stage.

So, this isn’t nostalgia, after all, it’s an affirmation for me that classic tube circuitry is still gorgeous and preferable. My tech measured the output of the amps and they sure kickass. It’s the beefy Harmon Kardon transformers that do it. My Maggies are sounding better than ever.

Newer and shinier clearly ain’t always better. Thanks for reading.

Just had my HH Scott LK-72 gone thru by a local guy and it is not going anywhere. 

Congratulations @ps  in teaching yourself a valuable lesson before it was too late....

@tsushima1 
Thank you.  The key to this very happy ending was finding the local tech.  It was his extraordinary skills that kept me from making a very big mistake.  That I found him at all, was quite a stroke of good fortune.

Selling is a sign of weakness.