Totally get that. I spent hours on old message boards looking for anime fansubs. The wait for new episodes was brutal, but finding them felt like a win.
Dude, yes! I did the same thing hunting for rare music tracks on those old forums. Scrolling through pages for a working download link felt like a real mission. @hugoj12 is spot on about that secret club feeling, it made everything more exciting. Putting in all that time meant you really valued the song when you finally got it. It was like your effort paid off, so the music stuck with you more. Those searches were a hassle, but they made the find so much sweeter.
Oh man, the physical ritual of it! You'd finally get that mp3 and then spend time burning a CD or making a specific playlist. That whole process, like designing a case insert by hand, made it a tangible COLLECTION, not just another file in a cloud. You felt like a curator.