A "Downgrade" that proved to be a spectacular "Upgrade" -------

Has anyone here, out of necessity, installed a piece of gear into your system that should have been an obvious "Downgrade" but actually turned out to be an "Upgrade" ?  I know this sounds topsy-turvy, but I recently removed two highend amplifiers from my system for regular maintenance and substituted a multi-channel amp that had previously been assigned the job of handling just the bass frequencies.  I was positively stunned at how alive the system sounded !  Even my wife, who is typically uninterested in most things audio, instantly remarked on the improvement ! The tweeters and woofers were now on the multi-channel amp and the mids still assigned to a McIntosh 2105 amp. The multi-channel amp in question is a 7 channel Outlaw amp, the highend amps that were removed were Burmester 878s and the loudspeakers are Linkwitz "Orion"s.  All-in-all it has been a terrific sounding system but I couldn't believe this incredible improvement in every respect when I made the changes.   Ever happen to you ----- anybody ?