I have the same issue you do where I keep things around just in case I might someday make a project with them. I actually got rid of a bunch of my old chumby devices (plus a lot of old freescale developer boards and miscellaneous embedded devices) specifically in a purge to get rid of such things, so I don't want to relapse!
I've found (as you mentioned) that if such a project does turn up I'm better off just buying a newish device like whatever the newest raspberry pi is and using that... more expensive than using scavenged parts, but lots less wasted time trying to get a modern kernel up, etc.
I have the same issue you do where I keep things around just in case I might someday make a project with them. I actually got rid of a bunch of my old chumby devices (plus a lot of old freescale developer boards and miscellaneous embedded devices) specifically in a purge to get rid of such things, so I don't want to relapse!
I've found (as you mentioned) that if such a project does turn up I'm better off just buying a newish device like whatever the newest raspberry pi is and using that... more expensive than using scavenged parts, but lots less wasted time trying to get a modern kernel up, etc.