I do study the claims closely, but think and hope that a manufacturer's or reviewer's claims have no bearing on my spending. If it sounds better (not only different) than my current component then I will spend the money as long as it is not an obscene amount (which BTW, rules out quite a lot of components and makes my upgrade choices much easier).

I have been fortunate to have been able to do some home auditioning before my purchases. Not the lenghts I purchased but the same cable.

Yes, I no longer worry about my cables but more important aspects like loudspeakers.

Although I do believe in spending some money on speaker cables with the best RLC characteristics, it seems most well-designed interconnects are so over-developed that there's little return in spending more there. I don't even want to think about AC upgrades.