The most relevant aspect of answering the question is understanding what a person's goal is. There are obviously a lot of people on this site (and with the audiophile passion) who are significantly more involved in the pursuit than I am - they play one or more instruments themselves, perhaps professionally, go to orders of magnitude more live concerts, and are willing to spend a lot more time on their system to find that which is "just right". These are the people who are going to get justifiably more by spending large amounts on their systems. Pls1 has described several times his involvment in music, his wife's common passion, and his financial ability to pursue state-of-the-art reproduction at home - he should spend a lot more than many others. I, on the other hand, listen to different genres of music, and really am just looking for very pleasing sound that is convenient, and am not going to take the time to get that last ounce of performance. I also don't want to deal with amps that heat my basement, or a system that I have to warm up for an hour. I've got a decent room for listening, but it's not that big and far from perfect, which also limits what "makes sense" for me to spend.
So, give me more time and more space, I'd spend more and see it as a reasonable choice. As it is, $20-25K builds a system for me that I see little reason to think about much more and instead just use. -Kirk