I pretty much live for my bike computers too, for the same reason: motivation. Every New Year's Eve, I reset all my bikes' odometers to zero, and start fresh. I keep my total cumulative distances on bikejournal.com.
When I restored the Falcon last summer, I didn't bother to put a computer on it. I felt nekkid without it. It's now on a trainer in our sunroom....with a computer installed.