Money well spent

Oleschool, I hear you. As I said, I'd just bought a super cable. In fact, I need two, one for the phono and one for deck, and I could get another one but decided not to and wait for a year or so.

Oleschool, it depends on what you want to accomplish. You will get better sound either way. But I think you want to upgrade the table, I would almost certainly do the same given the choice.

Oleschool, I guess, you want to do both, just not sure what to start with. In any case, if you go with expensive cartridge upgrade now you do want to be sure it will work just fine in a new arm should you decide to follow up with the table/arm change. It just may be mostly a matter of taste and opportunity if you buy used. I would almost certainly start with the table, someone else with the cartridge and another one with separate phono stage, perhaps even tube one.
Tell us what you eventually have decided.

One more thought. Oleschool, I don't know what cables you use, but I just upgraded one excellent old Purist interconnect with another newest Purist which is three steps above it. Wow. It's like a big cartridge upgrade, not a turntable/arm though.

Some people, many I would guess, have their rigs in living room so acoustic treatment may not be possible or be limited.
Your cables should be up to what you want to achieve. We all have the upgrade bug, one variable is the degree of it and another that some know it and say it openly and others don't. I too want to upgrade but I prefer to do rare but very significant upgrades, and I just did it. But my next upgrade is going to be much more expensive, it will be either replacing the phono stage with a great tube one or replacing the integrated. Both would be thousands of dollars. Cartridge too at some point, again at least $2k new.

I too don't really feel the wish to upgrade digital, though I know that it can be seriously improved. So far my CEC belt drive player serves me well, but I don't listen to it often. When I do upgrade it or if it just breaks down and I wouldn't want to have it fixed, I'll probably go with used older Accuphase or Esoteric or maybe some higher level Marantz.

There is VAC Phi 110i top of the line integrated for sale on usaudiomart from Canada for less than $10k. New cost about $25k.
Oleschool, they almost never come up for sale.

If you put your analog front end upgrade on hold and sell your current amp, how much would it cost you compared to what you are going to do? Yes, you may never want or need to upgrade that VAC. Except for tubes.

I see. Yeah, it would not be in steps. Backwards - no, in a little more complicated way - perhaps.