Dont put mediocre parts on a Yeti. Its not a Rockhopper. The Rockhopper 29’er may very well outperform the old Yeti due to wheel size, but it will never be a Yeti.

Recommendations on this from me would be to go ahead and buy the new bike, but do a restoration of the Yeti, rebuilding it with era appropriate parts. Biggest issue would be finding a suspension fork for ir if yours is completely out of sorts. 1x drivetrains are useful but on a 26” bike you can use a narrow-wide ring for your xtr crankset and a 11-36 10 speed rear. The smaller wheels do not need 50 toothcassettes

XTR is spendy - even 20 yo stuff if in good shape. Using XT level parts would stretch the budget a bit


i asked my FRO about youridea and it whispered back

”just dont eff up the Yeti”