To be honest, I buy as much as I can at cheap/reduced prices.
I’m happy to have last years colours if it means it’s half the price & buy stuff from Aldi if the performance seems to be good enough.
I don’t ride ‘that’ much though, so find it hard to justify the outlay. If/when I am riding more often and I have the money to spend I will probably splash out a bit more.
Take the dropper seat example above, even when I was riding a lot, it was only when we’d head for weekends away to the Peaks or trail centres, that I would perhaps think a dropper post would be worth having. But, it’s a lot of money to spend on something that only gets used a few times a year & is more of a ‘nice to have’ than essential.
I keep telling myself that one day I will treat myself to a custom frame & build it up with carefully selected top of the range components to build my perfect bike. But, I know it’ll never happen (unless I win the lottery)…. 😆