At the risk of corrupting my own thread with drift, this is a fascinating subject in itself. My guess is that our systems are as they are largely as a result of gradual evolution over time, rather than fundamental transformation at intervals. Obviously, given that we all have an interest in the equipment as well as the music, it's natural that we keep our eyes and ears open regarding other equipment and other ways of reproducing music. It's also natural that we want to try something new from time to time, even if just out of curiosity. But I suspect that we make changes to our systems in a relatively conservative and linear fashion. We probably remain wedded to fundamental aspects of our set-ups, partly because it reflects how we see ourselves, audio-wise ("I prefer valves", I always like a D/D turntable", "electrostatics all the way" and so on), but also because there is often a significant financial investment embedded in our systems, and swapping something major out could involve losing a sizeable chunk of money in second-hand sales value. So we proceed crab-wise.
But it is interesting to ponder what we would each do if we were told we had a clean sheet of paper and we didn't have to start from where we are now.
IB