Eh, I think at a certain point judgments of better or worse become entirely subjective. Really, we all tend to hear things differently and so even two dead indentical amps may give different impressions to listeners in the same setting.
The thing with a restoration job like this is that you now have an amp that is essentially brand new and will need little to no maintenance for years. It will also be easier to service when the need arises as it is not the "rats nest" that was done at the factory. I really doubt any noticeable difference in sonic characteristics based on components leads being precision bent at right angles. Now, component changes and upgrades may well alter something versus stock setup (assuming you could A/B this rebuilt amp with a brand new stock one back in 1967 before it aged five decades) but unless you have a time machine you won't be making that comparison so it is a moot point.
Really, this is an amp that needs nothing. Plug and play. It is worth a premium just on that account, and the fact it is expertly reworked for ease of future service work is a nice bonus. I think we get too caught up in stuff like the length of lead wires and other foolishness in audio gear. We aren't talking about Cray vector based supercomputers here where the developed length of a trace on a PCB will affect timing and sync in a precision logic circuit, this is the analog realm and there is lots of slack.
I also think most people, no matter how well informed of the science and physics of sound and electronics, will hear what they want to hear. In other words, if you know an amp has been restored and is no longer bone stock, you will be inclined to hear changes that aren't neccessarily there. Call it the placebo effect, confirmation bias, or whatever you like. The same as believing your setup sounds so much better after dropping $5000 on interconnects. Yeah, I'd have to claim it sounded so much better just to justify such an expenditure otherwise I'd probably break my ankle kicking myself in the a$$ for spending so much on...wires.
It has long been a hallmark of high end audio to nitpick the most insignificant of details as it is where the real money gets made. A lot of stuff couldn't get sold if everything was based on logic and fact. So, appeals are made to emotion or various intangibles that will be argued to the Nth degree with no one ever admitting that it is lost cause. It's like arguing religion or politics, where the beliefs are held with such conviction that no one can ever be persuaded to consider an alternative viewpoint.
And for full disclosure, I have no connection to this particular amp, the seller, or the tech who did the restoration. I just see an amp that was expertly restored and don't understand all the fuss about how it may have been decontented in the process.
/Rant off.
