Bob I could not agree with you more and I am in that place now.
For me, I kind of got pushed there when I got married 7 years ago and ended up moving. First off I lost my dedicated room and had no other choice but yo move my system into a shared space that was quite a bit smaller than what I had in my old house. This lead to several things. First off the some of the gear I used in the dedicated room would not work in the new space. Not only was there not enough space to fit it, but even when I squeezed it into the new space the speakers simply overpowered the room. And secondly, I had spent over 25 years tweaking things in the dedicated room. Even I I found a house withe a big enough space to use the same gear it wouldn't have sounded the same in a new space.
So I reconciled myself with the fact that the system was not going to sound as good as it did in the past, but it could still sound quite good and I started to focus more on enjoying the music. Have I made some gear changes since then, sure, bu t they were more driven by my desire to add new functionality to the system that would make it easier for me to enjoy music (i.e. computer and Roon based library) that it was by my desire to chase that last 2% of audio quality. And quite frankly I am much happier for it and am finding myself getting more pleasure from finally just listening to the system as opposed to trying to upgrade it.
But I do have to say that even when I was in the equipment upgrading phase my goal was always to get gear that would allow me to enjoy the music more. my biggest sense of accomplishment after upgrading was when it was all done and I could sit in the sweet spot fire up the salt lamps , turn off the rest of the room lights and sit in the almost dark listening to Dark Side of the moon and some of my other favorite music. For me it was always about improving the musical enjoyment, not improving the sound just for the sake of doing it.
And don't get me wrong, I am not saying that I am right and the gearheads are wrong. If you get your kicks out of pushing the sonic limits of your system just to say you can, by all means, have at it. Your getting pleasure out of gear is no less or more valid a reason for being in the hobby as somebody else's love of music. Hey whatever floats your boat.
But I think Parsons' comment is more base on his frustration that he puts a lots of time and effort into creating music as an art form and then watches (some) audiophiles simply use it to evaluate their gear which in his mind shows no respect for the art that he created. can understand where he comes from