Can a Amp be "timeless" and compete with todays amps?

absolutely

Send both in and be done.

A lot of people try to meditate, exceptionally few make it to real enlightenment.

High end audio is no different.

Lots of people try to make it to the the peak of the best in audio..but... few recognize it and few, few make it, and few sell it.

Popularity of gear is the center of the bell curve, as.. it is, in all measure, a human bell curve. Where projections of what is best will be what they are, projections.

The first false peak, one might say. The one that all the heavy advertising is built out of.

The best selling brands are not the best, never have been - and never will be. It’s just life.

And, if one moves to the best in gear, it will be difficult to find, difficult to discern, and if one makes it there, no one will listen to them. Maybe ... not even understand what they say, at all.

Just like mediation and enlightenment, or any other endeavor that deals with a decently sized cross section of of people. A pattern emerges. One that repeats itself in all human endeavor and groupings.

Arthur Salvatore’s website (don’t even know if it exists, anymore), among others, covered this sort of issue or problem. This is specifically regarding your (the op’s) scenario. He said it, like (I paraphrase), ’the high end audio technician is your best friend. your most desirable friend. The most valuable person in audio, to you. As they alter the gear to sound as best it can, beyond the factory spec/parts, beyond the orignal spec. Not just repair of valued high end gear, but to upgrade it. The rarest technical beast/unicorn of all, the high end tech with an ear and can do good repair work. A talented one, would be one who understands what each and every single part does to the ’sound’ of a piece of gear. and they can then, with your desires in mind, go into the gear, and bring that to you - if it is possible to do so."

This is, essentially, the last stop in audio, the last leg of the journey, the last few step sup the hill of audio enlightenment. When i see people reject modified audio gear, out of hand, I think of how right that can be, but also how wrong it can be. It’s a complex affair to judge the competency of a good audio technician.

the next problem is the monkey. the monkey carrier, the one who wants to slip into the bushes on the savanna and have some semi-illicit sex with the young female monkeys. Where they are both supposed to be subservient to the top monkeys, and not do such things.

Then, foraging for food, a thing done for the self by the self. When this sort of instinctual paring/area gets into audio, we find that we want everything good, to be free, and work hard to find that opportunistic moment. So we want the best gear for the lowest price and we’ll wander far and expend lots of energy to try and get there, via that method. Just part of being ’human’.

This is some of this sort of stuff that is in the way of getting to the best in audio. Or, to circle back and ground it.,a bit... sending the gear in to have it modded out is a viable path to getting to better audio. In my mind, it is far better than buying new.

Depends on the expense, though. Does reputation (tied to popularity) allow for gouging in prices? Or is the work good for the prices involved? A point which is difficult for the lay person to understand. Recall that success(in it’s breadth) is for mediocrity, not pinnacles or peaks. To keep that in mind when reviewing situations. The coin to analyze has not just those two sides, but is multi-faceted.

All that be as it may, modding gear is the last stage in the last rungs of the ladder of high end audio.

As another data point, my Ampsandsound Nautilus is modeled after the Harman Kardon Citation 2 which was introduced in 1959. Granted it is not my main speaker  amplifier (I bought it to use as a headphone amp) but when driving my Devore O/93's the sound is different than but just as good as my ARC Ref 150 SE. Your VAC's after a refresh will be right up there with the best of modern anps, imho. 

@teo_audio 

As a lawyer I mediate a lot. It sometimes results in settlement of the pending litigation. The word you are looking for in your spiritual search is "meditation". Also, that is one weird and non-specific post you got there!