Disagree that “no piece… is ever as important”. Try shooting fighting hummingbirds in the poorly lit and dense cloud forests of South America with a cell phone or point and shoot and getting 4 perfect sequence shots within 1/5 second. Try photographing Jupiter with a kit lens. You can have the best subject or situation ever, and if you don’t have the right tool it can be totally wasted. There are plenty of situations where these things must complement each other. Gear doesn’t matter… until it does and you’re caught out. Also, for this thread (and others) people just like to see how others have progressed, and more importantly why. Like why do I have a Z9 now instead of just keeping my D90 from 15 years ago? Maybe people look at what others have done and decide they don’t need to do that. Don’t worry that other people think about gear.