Congratulations on finding a jaw-dropping upgrade. Always a great experience! :thbmsp:
Without intending to inflame any arguments about vintage vs modern (both can be excellent), I find that mostly I seem to settle on the in-between stuff. Source and speakers in my main system are from the 80s, and amplification from the 90s. We usually associate the 80s with the rise of BPC rubbish, but in Japan they continued to develop and improve high-end gear for the domestic market. The TOTL Counterpoint pieces from just before the company's demise in the 90s were excellent. I couldn't have afforded the $25K price tag on my preamp back then, nor the even higher price tag for anything comparable new, but was able to get one used for something within my budget. And because it is not so old, it doesn't suffer from the age deterioration that a lot of the 70s gear shows.
I have both older gear and newer gear, but the "sweet spot" for the best gear overall seems to fall in the mid-80s to -90s era, at least for me. But that is only for the very high-end stuff, and only because I can't afford that top tier in new gear. (Have you priced stuff like Halcro or Magico lately?)
Of course, in the digital realm stuff just keeps getting both better and cheaper, so newer is usually significantly better. An Oppo 105, for example, makes an excellent multi disc player and DAC --plus it will play truly superb video stuff! Sonically, a GT-CD1 will sound a little better on redbook CDs, but it's hard to find any other vintage players that sound as good, and it won't play anything else but redbook. Also, headphones --and the whole genre of headphone amplifiers-- keep on improving (although also going up in price at the top end, reflecting the improvements).
It's foolish to become too entrenched in either "camp" - vintage or modern. Both offer different advantages and disadvantages, and sometimes the "in between" stuff or a mixture of old and new can offer the best of both worlds.