• We can never hear all the gear.
  
• No stereo can ever be the ultimate as next year's entry level model will blow away this year's reference model (as is always the case).
  
• We can never know if any recording is accurate to any given benchmark.
  
• Measurements are sometimes useful but ultimately incomplete.
  
• We can never know what someone else hears or for that matter, why they hear it, too many personal and environmental factors to take into account.
  
• The pursuit of greater audio can only be driven by individual experience, much like spirituality.
  
• Fear Of Missing Out is a condition instilled into audio customer through clever marketing.
  
• This leads to a situation (in circumstances where loaners are unavailable, an increasingly common scenario) wherein the customer begins evaluating a hypothetical system which they compare with their real system, also hypothetically. This is folly as the data is incomplete.
  

The above points have led me to the following conclusion:

It is easier and cheaper for me to enjoy the stereo I have rather than believe that further purchases are justifiable (and that said purchases will have a definite positive impact on my enjoyment of the music it produces).