I had a good mate - sadly now deceased - who got a great deal of pleasure
out of home colour printing. Just because something is difficult to
achieve well doesn't make it thankless - quite the reverse, often.

So did I. (Only he's still breathing, last time I looked.) He too
took great pleasure in the technical process. Eventually he realised
he was spending a LOT of time and money to be almost as good as the
machine at the camera shop :-) I had less money to burn and stuck
to black & white. Until digital came along I don't think I'd ever
shot in colour. Now the process is trivial and I enjoy making
photographs.

There's some audiophile analogies in there somewhere :-)