I appreciate the feedback. I do not doubt the better groupsets are better all around and bikes fitted with theses usually have better everything else too like wheels and brakes. I guess the one thing that struck me as odd was two different shops telling me the modern 9 speed Sora is not as good as the older 9 speeds. This makes no sense to me, why make it worse. It makes me wonder if they make more margin on the higher end stuff or just trying to sell what they have available.
My thinking is that for me having never used top tier equipment I won’t miss anything, I can use the saved money elsewhere and having 2 other 9 speeds I have some interchangeable components if I ever need to rob Peter to pay Paul.