Exactly. Unlike cables, that in my view should be one step ahead of the active components or you won't hear what your system is capable of.
Surely whichever component (including cables) is the least transparent is the rate-limiting factor? And since improving on any bottleneck component makes everything downstream from it sound better, removing bottlenecks closest to the source have the greatest potential gains? That's what baffles me about "rules" like the "10% rule" quoted above.