I can relate to this. I don't own any vintage instruments, but I have a few that mean a lot to me. I could honestly sell 75% of my guitars tomorrow and be totally fine, and even though I don't play them enough, I thoroughly enjoy the time I do get with them.
I've thought about buying some preamps, etc... like actual hardware. I looked at a 500-series rack, and holy cow are you on the mark with calling it a rabbit hole.
I'm in a similar boat, only I made sure I at least wrote out chord progressions for my stuff so I could go back and have a reference. The solos... yeah, I used to write those down, but it's been a while.