Older And Wiser or just Tighter and Deafer?

An additional thought: with today's abundance of quality equipment there's absolutely no reason to spend gobs of money on new gear if it makes you queasy thinking about it.  You can put together quite a good system nowadays without taking out a second mortgage.

A factor that has nothing to do with your age is your point of diminishing returns as far as your system goes.  For most of us who are possibly spending a bit more than we should but not emptying out the retirement account to buy gear, you're going to get to a level where you're just trying different flavors instead of actually upgrading.  For me at 60 my hearing is the worst it's ever been but I have the best system that I've ever had, and I can tell that by all of the details I'm hearing that I never paid attention to before; I'm just playing it a little louder.  I've been to a few audio stores and one show and really haven't heard anything that knocked me out so much that I've had to whip out the credit card to buy it right then and there (which, if you have to charge it because you don't have the money or you have other bills to pay, that's a warning sign to hold off all by itself).