How strange, are we twins? I used to live in The Woodlands (Alden Bridge) and was in the same boat. In 2005 I bought a used / homemade AL plate ( very long ) and started looking for a wing on eBay. They were like $300 at the time plus the webbing and cam straps and I had a hard time pulling the trigger as I already had gear to dive. I moved to Austin, wife got cancer and I stopped diving. I gave all my gear away in 2008 to a fellow ScubaBoarder to make sure that if I ever dove again I'd force myself to rebuy everything.
I finally started diving again in 2012 and bought a full set of DIR/Hog style gear and I love it. Prices came down also... my whole DRIS BP/W was $299.
So your 6 months was my 7 years! Go figure...