Not at you but your situation. I still have a k6-2 450 I built 3 years ago.
I remember longing for the 700 mhz athlon with the 200 mhz FSB shortly after. Now I'm eyeing a 1.5 P4-256mb ram (non DDR)- 40GB HD- 32AGP card at my work. They're about to toss it in the dumpster because of random reboots. Imaging that, 1.5 P4 tossed in the trash(recylce)- double what I was longing for. I figure a new MOBO will solve the problem.

Computers seem to be a lot like cars. If you were to build a new car from parts it would probably cost you well over $100,000.

I wonder if the new high performance components these days really make that much difference or does it only show in the benchtests?

My 450 does what I need it to do.

You might want to consider Halon. ;-)