Well, it all started way back when, with a misunderstanding in my mind about what a homelab is. Back then, in my mind a server was this big, honkin', brutal piece of equipment. Over the years I came to realize that all that rack stuff, while cheap upfront on the used market, was costing me some serious bucks in energy consumption + the added load on the AC, even when electricity in my locale is relatively cheap. Since I already was invested, I didn't want to redo everything and start from scratch. Then the 'mini-racks' started to be a thing with Lenovo's and such. I saw that others were doing what I wanted to do with much less. So, now days, it doesn't take much of a computer to run docker containers, Proxmox, etc. Far more energy efficient, doesn't generate so much heat load, and significantly more quiet.

In the near future, my goal is to miniaturize my lab, and then build me a $4k AI machine. Out of the frying pan into the fire yes, but I haven't had new equipment in well over 15+ years. I've always had used or refurb's. I think it's about time to treat myself.