An old high quality steel bike that fits you perfectly is worth upgrading. You can easily buy Dura Ace/Record components off ebay/craiglist to fit your vintage bike. I have indexed downtube shifters, they are great in a way that you can skip gears without having to shift through and they are compatible with pretty much everything.

I am planning to upgrade to full D/Ace components, I started with brakes/wheel hubs/FD/crankset. Just waiting to find RD and D/T shifters. Plenty of high-end "vintage" parts floating around!

It's up to you, spend $3k to get new bike with mid-level components or $25-80 here and there to upgrade your old steel frame with top of the line components. Oh also you can get fitter while you upgrade along...