Great replies!
I got caught up in the chasing tone thing. Let this be a warning to you beginners out there!
Anyway, itâs been a learning experience so not all bad. Instead of just buying a new shiny toy, I also try to keep in mind, âwhat purpose does it fulfill for meâ.
I just want to play guitar and sing: I have a Bugera for my acoustic playing and a Spark Edge for both electric and acoustic.
The Edge was purchased with the intention of, at some point using it for OMs. As yet not so far.
The amps are mostly used in the âbedroomâ.
For live I am generally put through the provided PA.
In the final assessment, it depends what you will use an amp for.
Should your neighbours be forgiving you could get a Marshall stack and let rip. 
Yeah, Iâm settled down now. I was thinking about selling the Blackstar at a guitar store. A dad was there looking for an amp for his kid. They are building a setlist to play around town as a duo. Lo and behold, my amp was just like the dadâs. So, they bought it. Gave them a good deal.
Now firmly in the Katana camp with my amp and the new Katana Go. So, problem solved. 
Love the avatar! Freaks Bros Go!
It occurs to me that what many people have said about the fun of chasing tones by twiddling knobs is very akin to the fun of programming synthesisers. In fact, it is a bit of a subset of synthesis - because a synth can be made to sound like a hurricane, a tuba, a cricket, an ambulance, a string section, a phone - you get the idea. You can download any number of decent software synths for free, by the way. And any little MIDI keyboard can be used to âplayâ these synths.
Now that I am more interested in guitar, I think of pedals as close analogues to the modules in modular analog synths, and the multi-effects units are rather like digital synths in their own right. It all boils down to signal processing, with the input being the guitar.
And right now, I am off to YouTube to see what guitar synthesisers are all about!
Ooh that old chestnut, I had a Roland Synth Guitar back in the 80âs and it took me months to get too some level of understanding of how to get sounds out of it that I liked, and how to set it up effectively for some songs. Musically it felt like I had jumped down âAlice in Wonderlandsâ rabbit hole on a big âTripâ. Good luck if you get one.
That depends, right? Are you buying the new gear just because you like buying the new gear?
Or do you have a reason? Do you have a use for that particular item? If you buy something because you specifically want to use it for some music, then itâs a pretty easy argument to say that the new gear does make the music sound better. Because that gear helps you to make the particular sound that you want to make for a particular song.
Some people like the sound that a basic, simple acoustic guitar produces. Thatâs great. Some people like the sound of a clean electric guitar. Thatâs also great. Some people like the sound of specific effects. Also great. Some people have a sound in their brain that they are trying to produce and they may not necessarily know how to get it. So they experiment with techniques and gear. Also great.
A lot of activities have an initial âstuff acquisitionâ phase and then you reach a point where you are more or less satisfied and then further acquisitions are more about maintenance than anything else. For some people, the acquisition of stuff is the activity unto itself. So long as youâre honest with yourself about that and itâs not harmful, I donât see a problem.
Yeah, this is where Iâm at. I went all gangbusters in the beginning, following my palâs lead. It didnât help that he would send me videos telling me âlook at the difference this pickup makes in a stratâ.
Now, Iâm settling into the âdoes it make senseâ mode. So, a learning experience. For example, Iâm slowly building a pedalboard. In my Katana, I am always using the Rat clone, so, the first pedal I bought was a Rat (after a pedal tuner).
I own 3 guitars and will stay there a long time. My Taylor is going no where. My Strat with the DiMarzio Chopper is going no where. The PRS SE CE 24 Satin Charcoal is trying to join the club to provide me more for Nirvana, Black Sabbath, etc. than the Chopper can provide. Not sure yet, but it might be a keeper. One amp, Katana, and a Katana Go.
I guess my history is not too uncommon. Get excited about learning guitar. Toss money at gear. Buy some shiny new toys. And then, as knowledge increases, settle on what is useful.
That being said. I have 5 songs memorized, almost completed module 8 of Grade 2, and starting module 9. Can play the F chords, but not real quick with them. I will certainly finish through Grade 3 before doing too deep a dive into my other songs. But, in my mind map, July is when I add Come As You Are to my practice schedule. Just a couple of transitions need to smooth out and I can play along with the video. I know the whole song including the lead. 
As long as guitars < songs, youâre doing OK. 
DO
S = S +1
G = G -1
WHILE(G >= S)
I satisfied my curiosity regarding the state of the art of guitar synths. I was impressed by how responsive they are now, and how rich the sound palette is, but it still seems a bit fiddly if you donât have a purpose-built MIDI guitar. I donât like the idea of stick-on pickups. Obviously there are some guitar synths that can do some sort of polyphonic analysis of the ordinary analog guitar output, but I presume they are prone to issues that the dedicated MIDI systems donât suffer.
Anyway, Iâm content to know whatâs out there, without feeling any sort of need to get one.