Would you buy a tube amp if you were unable to use vintage tubes in it ?

My preamp is Conrad-Johnson's top model the ART88.  It came brand new from the factory with four Phillips NOS ECC88's.  I read in a HiFI+ review that you could replace the "made for TVs" NOS tubes with EH6922 Golds for a nice increase in sound quality.  Okay, so ordered a set.  Yes the change was immediate. Jeff, the designer at C-J said he thought the EH's might turn noisy but no harm.  After a few months, there was no noise from the EH's but thought I'd put the NOS tubes back in and see how they sounded.  What I discovered was a definite preference for the original NOS tubes.  The sound was better; richer in the mids and just as detailed.  Turns out, I was fooled by a bit of extra gain from the new production tubes.  Slightly louder, of course, sounded better at first.

Guess the process is to listen and see what you prefer.  The HiFi + review has  different gear so came to a another conclusion.

My tube preamp is a Linear Tube Audio MZ2. Maybe tube rolling changes the sound, but I prefer a different tool: the five-band parametric equalizer in the RME ADI FS2 DAC. Sometimes I run it flat, and sometimes I run it with a boost in the lower midtones (250 - 500 HZ). The difference in sound is apparent. And the DAC should last longer than almost any preamp tube.

Well, contrary to what others have posted, I understand that many phono stage manufacturers ship their units with crappy stock tubes. The reason? They know that tube sound and quality is relatively subjective, that people pay top $ for some tubes from the 1950s, that tube rolling exists and that therefore the user is going to immediately put his or her own tubes in upon installation. 

As I did. 

"vintage" also may imply that something became a classic and has a historical value. So I will call only excellent old tubes vintage not all of them.

Yeah, signal tubes from 50s or even late 40s.