I think (as it seems many others do) that both have their place. Emulation is my quick and dirty fix when I can't be arsed to find a plug socket and a dust rag (because as useful as a dust cover is, the dust cover itself has no ability to protect it's own self from gathering a half inch of dust, and unless I want to dust the whole room, a careful dusting of the dust cover is in order)
Nothing though, can beat the satisfaction, of finding old bits and pieces and actually getting your old hardware to display a high res image to a vga monitor, and play things like doom or quake. Sure those are infinitely old by todays standards, but I don't know why, there's just something very cool about seeing them running knowing that your PC is firmly turned off.
In fact, I was kind of excited the first time I got my amiga connected to the internet. It was years after I'd done it with my PC, and despite the fact that the browser I was using with the Amiga looked a little clunky, it was almost like discovering the net all over again. I went to page after page, just to see how the amiga handled it.
Pointless maybe, but enjoyable nonetheless.
