Again, my ultimate and original argument that if you aren’t interested in experimenting with doing your own aging and just want something to pair with dinner that night, it’s rarely worth going for the more expensive bottle. You can buy a wine that is just as good at that point in time and will not likely get better with age for a significantly cheaper price. And I have also found some pre-aged bottles that I greatly enjoyed and that had a higher level of richness and complexity to them that didn’t break the bank, but they also didn’t come anywhere close to comparing to some of the more expensive wines that my grandparents cellar-aged that I’ve had the privilege of sampling.

Like you said, I think we ultimately agree, I should've stated my comment more as a clarification than a correction.

You're definitely right that you tend to pay extra for age-ability, and that you should avoid that if you're going to drink it young.

I think your point is a good application of a larger fact of serious wine tasting - it's a skill that requires actual experience.

It's kind of visible all over this thread - people seem to act as though "drinking a lot of wine" is sufficient to becoming an expert on wine. Aging (and barrel types), food pairing, temperature, varietal, terroir, country/area traditions, etc. are all unique parts of wine tasting that are just not possible to understand without some real effort on the part of a wino.