@sokogear -I agree. Not sure if there was something in one my posts that prompted you, but when I was coming up-- call it 1970--there was a lot of attention paid to "audiophile spectaculars" eventually the HP "List," all those direct to disc records that were great sounding but rarely adventurous, etc. I'll admit to being part of the fold of audiophiles in that period, including a lot of the original MoFi stuff (which, after some time and some studied comparisons/shoot-outs, did not hold up so well).
I finally got out of that mindset, and though I bought records like a drunken sailor when vinyl was declared a "dead" medium, I eventually started to get serious about music I liked and tried to find the best sounding pressings. Many times, it's just different shadings of a master that has flaws--I would say I have more "multiple copies" of records that are challenged sonically, in the search for the one that sounds like real instruments to me.
At this point, I'm no longer on an upward climb- I have more than enough records to listen to here for the rest of my life. I do like the obscure, the forgotten, the "how did this never show up on my radar?" experience. It's all a learning curve for me and an enjoyable one that involves not only the composition and performance, but the "why?" of it--how could some of these simply recorded records made in the days before large multi-track, outboard processing, etc. sound so good? One answer I got from a label chief was that the bands were able to play a song through without the need to overdub. Another was that the very nature of the primitive equipment (by today's standards) made for far less post-production. I'm not sure there is a single answer-- everybody has their own "mission" in this endeavor. Mine for the last couple decades has been exposure to more, different music, and deep dives into catalogs I never heard of back in the (analog) day.

