I'm not an "original" kind of guy either. There is plenty about my car that is nowhere near original, and I don't care, but I always hated the idea of butchering it beyond where it could be returned. That idea bothers me less and less each passing year though
Yes, the big resto-mods are getting some big money, but they are usually high end stuff that COSTS big money. I seriously doubt that people are making money on a lot of them, except for the fabrication shops doing the work for big spenders.
And I agree, the value has dropped significantly, and will probably continue to do so. Lots of reasons for that, but basically the younger generation has less interest in them. Heck, the new family sedan will blow the doors off most older 'performance' cars, so why bother spending big money on an inferior car? The same goes for lots of areas that I love, like vintage aircraft and steam engines. Finding volunteers or people with money that are willing to maintain those parts of history are going to be disappearing over the next generation. Right now, vintage aviation is peaking because the current millionaires willing to plunk down the cash on their boyhood dreams are at the right age, with money to burn, and boy does it take a LOT of money! When the next generation comes along, the interest probably won't be there to support it. Then we'll just be looking at them in museums.
Joe, I'm not up on values of that stuff. Last I saw, complete Mustang shaker assemblies were bringing $3000+, but that's complete, original units. Lots of details go into that to make a system "complete" though, and some parts are near impossible to find. But now you can buy everything reproduction, so I imagine that's killed a lot of the value that they used to have.