This is exactly the mentality I'm talking about. People have entertained themselves for all of human history without anything nearly as sophisticated as modern displays. At some point this unchecked desire will suck all of the fun out of a hobby and leave you constantly buying the latest thing and dissatisfied at anything that isn't the highests specs possible to acquire.
The game story, gameplay elements, and such have become secondary to the real hobby of consumerism. If people could have fun gaming 20 years ago, there is no reason it isn't possible to have just as much fun gaming on low to mid range hardware today.
I think this is similar to how buying books is a related but different hobby to reading books, or buying board games is a related but different hobby to playing board games. I know people who have hundreds of board games, thousands of dollars worth, but rarely get to actually play them (for various reasons but mostly involving children).
The hobby of optimising your gaming desktop is a related but different hobby to actually playing games.