Few audiophools treat gear purely as an investment (particularly flash memory ) and exactly none of them can admit that the thing they like in their gear is the looks and the delusion it causes rather than the sound.
I disagree. Looks is a very large part of it, otherwise there wouldn't be so much attention paid to making high end audio look good. And what is wrong with that? It's art that serves a useful purpose, it is almost entirely about how it looks. A lot of the gear is a good investment too, look at what classic amplifiers, speakers and turntables sell for today.