I agree, the way things are today, playing the original hardware has never been better, except for the prices.
To me what really shines about emulation is the convenience, you can play a lot, stuff you'll never be able to afford, in my case tons of games. The thing is dedication, is easy to be distracted with emulation, you're shooting for that 1CC run and if you start faulty you swap the game for something else...I tend to do that a lot, but with original hardware is such a PITA, specially with PCBs, I just keep playing the same shit over and over for a good month, sometimes more. Another thing that is great about emulation is stave states. If you're organized you can have sorta "practice" mode for any given game, just to learn the stages better, finally break that wall and what have you. I know a lot of people consider it cheating, I dunno, you're still getting better regardless.
When I found out about emulation my mind exploded, someone told me about it and I couldn't believe what they were saying, it really is a gift. I know it's a touchy subject, rom whoring was awful back in the day and for a while there...after I understood what was happening and what piracy was doing, it made me angry, to see SNK slowly fall apart partly due to it. It took me a while to be more acceptant to emulation, but ever since I've played emulation a lot more than I play my actual games. I guess it depends on the situation, I will always and ultimately prefer to play original hardware, maybe 'cause I'm nostalgic, clingy to stuff but emulation is so convenient.