I'm both rationally and irrationally drawn to preamps. The one thing that they do, they can do about as well as it can ever be done; that appeals to me. But it's also a fact that portable "semi-pro" recorders don't always have balanced XLR inputs, very low noise and distortion, reliable phantom powering, and/or input overload margins suitable for professional condenser microphones. Good preamps, on the other hand, can offer those things while freeing me to use any of a wide range of possible lower-cost recorders.
I mean, if a recorder happens to offer those qualities, it's great; for years I recorded on a Nagra IV-S using 12-Volt phantom powered microphones or low-current P48 microphones and all was well. But the Nagra was a very large investment. I felt that it was justified at the time since for the foreseeable future back then, I didn't think that anything better was likely to come along. I recorded on it for about eight years until the Sony PCM-F1 became available, and I still use it for some analog transfers. 48 years of highly reliable service from a piece of recording equipment is fairly satisfactory, I'd say.
But today, good professional recorders with all the latest features (and price tags to match) are introduced each year, while live recording, for me at least, is on hold until classical concert life bounces back here in New York. So I can't justify a large investment in a fancy professional recorder; I probably will never buy a "high-ticket" deck again in my life. Thus I rely on good outboard preamps (including a Grace V3 with S/P-DIF output and a Sound Devices MP-2 with consumer-aux-level outputs) to let me use low-cost, portable recorders. Then with that problem solved, I can focus more on the best use of my microphones, which is never a completely solved problem.