Patience is tough - it took me about 2 years to go from my first Stratos Extreme to adding the deHavilland to adding the Lors and then finally doing the Mono Extreme upgrade.
Tough indeed. I bought my VMPS RM2s about 6 years ago. Thought a great set of speakers paired with my Yamaha integrated would be enough. And it was...for awhile. Started looking into high end stuff, and someone turned me to audiogon. About a week later, B stock extremes were for sale, and I jumped on them after reading about how desirable they were. Bought them unheard. But now, when considering preamps and a possible CD source, I am not as willing to buy thousand dollar plus components without hearing them. And this stuff we are talking about isn't all that common in the real, non-audiophile world.

But, I'm not quite ready for it, so I am biding my time....
Captain Humble, thanks for the Dodd suggestion. Pricing is a bit higher than the Modwright, but their midrange preamp is in the ballpark. And sometimes they make the MSRP a bit higher when they go to a dealer network to give the dealers some wiggle room on the price....or so I've been told....