> Old school Deep Sky is losing its appeal due to a) pictures being available online, meaning that you've already seen the better version of the same photo

I find deep sky astrophotography compelling because there's still a huge difference between _my_ image of a galaxy and the many "better" ones already available. The difference is that I went through the experience of taking it so it feels more like it's really there. It's the closest I can get to actually experiencing seeing the galaxy with my naked eyes. The ideal would be visual astronomy of DSOs but that'll never be possible.