I would make friends with your local bike coop if you have one. YOu can probably find quite a bit of somewhat nicer stuff to upgrade your bike with on the cheap. Not fancy carbon forks or those kind of parts but stuff like maybe a Deore class crankset, derailleurs, shifters, etc. Stuff that you really wouldn't want to buy new to throw at an older frame. Nothing wrong with the frame that you have but buying fancy new parts like carbon fork and stuff just doesn't make sense. Its like having a rusty 1989 Toyota Corolla and throwing 3k at it with a new stereo system. Just not worth it at all.
But if you can get some nice Deore/Exage style stuff for cheap at your coop, why not go for it? Just stay away from bling bling stuff like threadless fork conversions unless you jsut want to use one of those adapters.