If you need help spending money, Rokslide is no doubt here to help. Haha.
Well said, and SO TRUE! To answer the original poster question. I too was in the same boat as you, but had to take a slightly different route. I had some backpack gear, but not everything I needed. Because I wasn't just outfitting for me (I had to also get gear for the wife and my boy), it was pretty expensive so I looked for deals on the classifieds. I currently have eberlestock packs too. One is a Blue Widow, and the other is a dragonfly. Yes they are definilty heavy empty. BUT I got both of them for less than one kifaru. I WILL be upgrading those at some point, but I had to make some choices. I needed better sleeping bags first, so I got that taken care of last year (western mountaineer). I also wanted a spottign scope and tripod for the hunt last year, so I spent what I could and got a Vortex Razor 65mm. At that point I had to spot bleeding the $$$ and go hunt.
This year, I upgraded the shelter to a Kifaru Sawtooth!! Should be here in the next few days! Next year I hope to upgrade at least one pack to a Kiraru...probably an EMR2 based on what I have researched so far. Its a costly process for sure!! Good luck, and pace yourself because if you eat tag soup like we did last year, you still need some $$$ for groceries LOL.
Anyways, my pack always seems to heavy when compared to what these guys recommend also. Its hard to compare apples to apples though. Water and food are heavy items to carry, and I think that is where some weight can be cut for me. To explain...instead of carrying 70 oz in a water bladder, maybe I could carry 32 oz instead, and find a water source along the way (not always possible in NM mountains). For weight savings with food, it means I need to study more about the foods that have the highest nutritional value for their weight. There are some good gritty bowman podcasts on youtube about this as well. I am by no means an expert on this stuff, just explaining the path I have taken so far.
Good luck.