Getting into the music

Like the genie in the bottle, once you acquire the skill of critical listening, it’s hard to turn it off.

As ghdprentice described it, is called "technically perfect, musically dead".

So how to tackle your problem of loosing the music?

You have a great system but I would ditch the Benchmark DAC for sure and go NOS. IMHO, that DAC is made for mastering but not so good for listening to music.

I like Golden Ear but listen to some DeVore O/96. See what you think. They emphasize colors in the music, not detail.

If there are soundstaging issues, listen in mono, not stereo. This can be easily done with a "Y" connector.

I find myself going from composition to composition looking for audio niceties

Ask yourself "How many of these songs do I actually like?" Are you expecting the "sonic delights" to make you like a song that you basically do not like?

Do not throw out the baby with the bath water. As you realized, there are some songs that do sound really good on a hi-end stereo.

There is no shame in walking away from this hobby if it is doing more harm than good.

Hope this helps.

@OP Conversely, as a musician and recordist, I have to turn off the engineering and production side of my brain rather than the audiophile side.

I find it helpful to listen to the radio on an average sounding system - with less information, it's easier to focus just on the writer/composer's intentions.

I think we all go through what the OP described.  In my case I retired 2 weeks ago and my first task was to straighten out my listening room(s), which meant organizing a lot of physical media.  In the course of doing so I encounter many long unplayed recordings and I’ve been listening uncritically from an audio standpoint and having a great time.  I recommend the OP go wading into his vast collection and just play whatever grabs his fancy

Been in this hobby for about 50 years.  IME if you put a well balanced audio system together and use quality sources both digital and analogue, you can enjoy the music. The key is balance.  A mid priced system that has components of similar cost and ability will sound better than a system that has one very expensive component which will reveal the flaws of the cheaper components.  

I feel your pain. Since retiring I have chased "the sound" and finally it hit me. I was wasting too much time in the critical listening arena and not enjoying the music. Then one day, on a whim, I tried out an old pair of Klipsch Chorus ll speakers. I hooked them up to my Luxman L-509Z and played the digital file Hotel California from the Eagles’ When Hell Freezes Over album through my Aurender A20. When Don Henley hit the bass drum and I thought he was in the room with me I realized I was done. No more chasing the ultimate sound. I spent untold hours listening to amps, preamps, speakers, DACs, cables, etc. I found my happy place. I had half a million dollars of gear running through my house over the past two-three years, driving my wife nuts. Only thing left is to do some room tweaks and I am done. Or am I? The plot is always moist...

All I do now is swap out the Klipsch with an amazing sounding set of Harbeth SHL5s. The wife helps with that.