So,
Armory finished reloading and reorganising everything.

Still no transactions for the wallets and thus no balances either.

after all I did not lost a fortune, hardly half a bitcoin or so. Building an up to date system only to recuperate my wallets will cost me considerably more.

I very much doubt the introduction of bitcoin into 3rd world countries: even though my system is like 2 years old and quit lightweight performancewise it will still outperform compared to 10+ years old hardware with dial-up alike speed restrictions as most really poor people have to rely on.

Best idea is to quit trying I guess ?

Thanks for all the efforts.