Ditto here - thanks so much for sharing your journey! I think a lot of us relate to your own experiences, and it helps use feel not quite so crazy and alone in our own quests
I've definitely been thinking recently - how in the past it used to seem REALLY tough to achieve a truly satisfying, enveloping and detailed musical system. I hated going through components that were well reviewed yet sounded completely uninspiring in my system. BUT a lot of today's current tube gear is really something special. Despite tubes being old tech, this stuff isn't standing still - high quality builds using exceptional parts quality (and new careful attention to wiring, vibration control, power supplies) are showing us that vacuum tube amplification is still capable of much more.
Quality brands dedicated to tube amplification like ARC and VAC (just two examples) are just hitting it out of the park with the current lines. And yes they cost a lot of money - but it's worth it!