You guys have too much time on your hands
It depends. My main station receiver is primarily functional for my station, even though the collectors consider it a museum piece.
But I like restoring certain types of antique and vintage equipment so that it looks original. I get a let-down feeling when I run across a carefully restored 1920's or early 30's piece, and then open the cabinet or turn the chassis upside down and find it full of orange drops and film resistors. It's like finding a fine vintage automobile from the same era, but opening the hood and finding that the entire power train has been replaced with something modern.
Some things, like the R-390 and 75A-4 are mostly functional, preserved because of their quality of design and construction. I won't drill holes in the cabinet or make irreversible changes, but I care little about using only "period" components in a repair or upgrade.
The early HRO is more like a living museum piece. I may make some changes to improve performance, but I like to keep the components period.
But then, take something like a 1930 SW-3, piano-lid Atwater Kent or 1928 self-excited 210 transmitter. I prefer to restore those back as close to the original as possible.
Something I fail to understand is the commonly heard refusal to upgrade the performance of a not-so-antique piece like a Viking II, DX-100 or T-368, but to retain space-shuttle audio or a drifty VFO with FM because the owner wants to keep the circuit "original" while using orange-drops and film resistors to get it working.
It's a hobby, with many facets of interest. If the only goal and objective was to "talk over the air", we would all be running space-shuttle quality slopbucket with plastic radios.
