Done 3 rides in past 24 hours. It's addictive.
Had the same feelings for the past month. Gave up mountain biking about 10 years ago, too many injuries from single track riding. Decided in April as snow was melting and XC ski season was almost over (took up XC skiing when Mammoth closed on March 14th) that I needed to get back into MTBs. Was never gonna spend that kind of money. Get myself a nice hardtail for less than 3k. Did a bunch of research and kept coming across eMTB reviews. Talked to a few local guys and they were raving about eMTBs. Finally rented one (ended up going toward purchase) and I knew I was buying one within 10 minutes. Go places you could never get to with a regular mtb, go further, ride to trails instead of driving your car to trails.
Still gonna mostly ride multi-track, maybe when I get some skills back I'll ride more technical stuff. Have hardly used Turbo mode, couple of times on 25 degree pitch, I call it Beast Mode. Otherwise, 85 percent of the time I'm in Eco mode, 14 percent in Trail mode, so I'm not using it as a shuttle for DHing.
Twice the fun? Think so.