What do you care about in this hobby?

1) Sound Quality is top.

But I without the factors below, it’s not going to get purchased. 

2) cost commiserate with sound quality

3) absolute reliability - decades without failure

4) top quality build

5)  good aesthetics

6) finally while I should never need it, but service and support. 

For me, Sound Quality matters the most by a long shot. And within the category of "sound quality" some things really matter, foremost the tonal quality of the instruments and voices. I care that they feel like they have body and color and a certain thickness to them. Lean but accurate would not make me happy.

I want a nice, simple soundstage where instruments live on the horizontal plane in some realistic way (I know the mix of the album controls this to a great degree, but if it is there, I'd like to hear it). I don't care about "3-D" imaging, holographic this or that. I find that distracting, and not musical. 

I don't need components to be silent - I need them to present the music. Tape hiss is okay, and if my tube phono section has a little noise at higher volumes, that is okay with me. 

After sound quality, Reliability matters to me - I don't want my system down too many days. And I need a manufacturer who communicates well, since I am not very astute when it comes to the technical parts of the endeavor.

And after that, I want gear that lets me participate, in at least a little way, in how it sounds. I want to customize it, a little. So, I want tube gear so I can try different tubes to get that sound quality I mention above. I like analog gear that lets me try new cartridges, and new settings such as VTA and azimuth. I like setting up a new aerial for my ancient tuner. But I am incompetent at soldering or even reading electrical diagrams, so only a little participation, please.  

I am blessed with my own listening room, so how it looks doesn't matter very much to me. 

And I love that others have very different audio values. I have a friend who lives and dies by how his system images. And it is remarkable, and I am happy that it makes him happy, and I share my admiration for how carefully he has set it up. The fact that I don't need or want the same is almost irrelevant. 

David

Educating myself about everything physics of sound 

And

Enjoying my media on my system whilst leaving room for discovery.

I’ve achieved the second one fully and I’m now reasonably knowledgeable in the first but still far from even being an amateur acoustician

Basically, all the above 

Sound quality first, aesthetics 2nd. Value only matters to me when 1. I can’t afford it anymore, and 2. clearcut cases of misplaced expense - i.e. obnoxiously bad engineering / design; ostentatious chassis; misguided product philosophy. 

The others categories matter to me about ZERO. Measurements can be a curiosity & fun read, but I treat them largely as a separate pursuit, with little overlap to listening.

For service and support - keep in mind so many hifi companies are "1-man shows", or close to it. Usually, the proprietor is OLD. What do you think the landscape is going to look like in 10+ years? The only service & support you can count on is having gear with (mostly) replaceable parts that can be reasonably worked on by other technicians. That, and get some spares for the parts that are hard to replace (drivers). You DEFINITELY want your key components to be known to known reliable units. I know my Tannoys are tough as nails because I've had several "oopsie" momemts with them over 15+ years, and they've come out unscathed.