Absolutely correct, soix, and I am excited to hear how you like your rebuild!
I had a DNA-1 Deluxe for 20 years, loved it, and then it died suddenly. Board and/or caps failed. I had been in discussion for several years with Steve Mc and Patrick at SMc Audio to do one of his full upgrades but hadn’t. When it died I called them, and they gave me $400 for the dead amp. A mistake on my part, because I have decided I might like the latest "Full Monty" rebuild he does with his "gravity base" system on the DNA series and I can’t find a dead DNA-1 as the platform for it. When I’ve searched used ones, 20 years old for $1500-2500, I just laugh because they are time bombs. It’s not a question of if they will die (for the reasons Soix described), but when.
The gravity base is a heavy brass plate they build into the amp, iirc, which was developed during their collaboration with David Berning, one of the world’s foremost amplifier designers. They tell me it makes a very worthy improvement to their amps. Steve and SMc are now building very high-end amps and preamps on a per order basis, but still rebuilding his old DNA series because of demand. They have always been special amps and a true value, and people I’ve talked to who have done the latest gravity base full-house upgrade (maybe $3-4k?) say they are as good as anything 2-3X the price. Steve McC has always been about value for the workingman, but now he is doing custom high-end work because of his reputation. One system that he was a team member on is almost $1 MILLION. The high-end world is weird. SMc build a wonderful preamp that was $8K, but it didn't sell much because it was at the low end of the really high end. They got a distributor, doubled the price for the same unit (had to increase the price), and now they can't build them fast enough apparently. Because some people don't think a preamp can be good if it's "only" $8000 but at $16,000 it must be.
Patrick at SMc is a good guy and can tell you all about what they are doing.