As long as our ears are still analog, they’ll be a need to connect with the air and move it around in our listening spaces. Precision raw speaker drivers, robust amplification, meaty cables, and the power from the wall to make it all happen will be essential elements of a audiophile system for some time to come. Until we have the tech to communicate those digital sources telepathically, or have a port installed and a digital bitstream connected directly to our brains, those "old school’ things will matter. It’s also irrelevant whether those items are internal, external, active or passive, the sames rules apply. Even short cables runs (inches) and termination methods make a differece. Yes, we can split hairs here and debate the gradients of various solutions, but that same stuff matters, whether it’s sonic impactt is 1% or 90% on sound quality.
What we invest in our system depends on a number of factors. Some of us have the ability to select "this" AND "this". Most of us have to choose between "this" OR "this". Just like a portfolio of "adenelin stocks" -- the one’s you choose because you want the excitement of playing in the stock market, your audio gear investment needs to be money you can afford to loose, or at least a good chunk of it.
As far as dealers are concerned (I’m a retired one), not all customers are rugged individuals who relish in the aspect of taking on the magnitude of information out there to select the "right" system. They are busy people in many cases. Or, they’re emotionally and financially involved in their classic car, motorcycle, guitar, watch or wine collections. Audio is something they enjoy, but they’d rather take a deep dive into turbos vs superchargers discussion than vinyl vs streaming. Many came to us with a "save the labor pains, just give me the baby" attitude. They want to push a button and emerge themselves (and, their guests) in music and movies, and could care very little about dampening factors, black backgrounds, or FLAC vs MQA. Service and support is a high priority for them. There are dealers who have dedicated their careers to providing a high level of integrity as good stewards of their customer’s money.