I don't want to end up paying £350+ and yet still having to run an emulator & use a ROM on top of that for the steam deck option to be honest, even if I recognise that the deck has way more uses outside of just that one use. It'll be a "cheap" Christmas present to myself so something like an original console, plus a few extras, for £50 is probably a more realistic proposition, even if the physical wear/tear issues of using an old PS console is a much bigger risk.
At some point there would be a cross-over, as working consoles get rarer to find, where I could see myself swapping to an emulator (and I've checked out lots currently available, from stand-alone mini-PC's to HDD's full of ROMs to Pi-style "built it yourself" kits etc) but, for me at least, I feel that a console is a better bet right now.