I don't read too much into that stuff. It's a hills-old reviewing hack to compare an affordable piece to a mega-buck standard as "so very close!". And then the next mega-buck piece they review will likely get "best I've ever heard!", and "so good I bought it!" accolades.
I too spent a ton on several major upgrades this past year, and with VERY few exceptions they've each represented a MAJOR step forward in my audio satisfaction. If you don't experience the same, then you're upgrading wrong; sell/return what you can and try again! And I generally avoid upgrading DACs (all the $'s for analog) because diminishing returns on that one component is ungodly frustrating, lol.
If you have Momentums, then I wouldn't worry at all about much
