Neville Dalton is a journalist with the BBC News website and a Portsmouth fan of more than 40 years. His expressed views are his and not necessarily those of the BBC.
So here we are, another top-half Premier League finish and on the brink of our first FA Cup Final for 69 years.
This has got to be the best season ever for the Blues - or at least, for all fans under 55.
And of course it is.
But is it really so much better than last season? How much progress have we really made for our phenomenal investment?
Well, first things first. We're in the Cup Final. That has to make it better than last term - and as good as any season since we last won proper silverware.
So that'll be best since 1951, then.
Last season we enjoyed our highest finish for over half a century, and since we can't finish any lower than we did then, that should remove any doubts as to how great 2007-8 has been.
We've been to Wembley - and won.
We get the chance to go there again - against lower-division opposition - for the right to become FA Cup winners again… and qualify for European competition for the first time.
It just gets better, doesn't it?
And thanks must go to Harry Redknapp for assembling another quality squad, on paper stronger than the one that came within one disallowed goal of Europe last season.
Thanks, too, to Sasha Gaydamak for funding it and having faith in Harry to deliver.
Congratulations, too, to the coaching staff, of which I can't help thinking Tony Adams really is the pick.
Sacrificing
But hold on. At the time of writing, we have neither won anything (Asian Trophy notably excepted) nor bettered last season's finishing position.
What we have done is invest significantly in new players (though admittedly sacrificing a few along the way, apparently to pay for some of the newcomers).
Effectively, Harry built on last year's more-than-decent team, bringing in generally better and stronger players and certainly adding depth to the squad.
We've also broken a few records along the way.
And no one should be disappointed that at the very least Pompey are now one of the top sides in England, with an ability to reach cup finals and attract some of the country's top footballing talent.
But quite how much better we are is open to question.
Better in terms of league position (the best measure)? Mmm. Sunday will tell, but if so, then only marginally.
Better in terms of European qualification? Certainly not via the league - we missed Uefa Cup qualification by a bigger margin this year than last, although victory at Wembley on May 17 would make that irrelevant if we can soak up cup glory and a place in Europe.
Better players? No one can doubt the pedigree of Sylvain Distin (my player of the season), Lassana Diarra and Jermain Defoe.
Papa Bouba Diop has exceeded my (rather low) expectations, but is he better than Gary O'Neil? The jury's out, to put it generously.
Sully Muntari? Decent first season. Brings definite assets to the side. But at the expense largely of Sean Davis and Pedro Mendes. Another knife-edge judgment, I reckon.
Best Crosser
John Utaka? Everyone talks about potential and how he'll deliver next season. I've seen glimpses to say they're right… and plenty of attitude and body-language problems that suggest I'll be disappointed.
Johnno's now a permanent Pompey treasure, and that's a step forward after the promising start to his year on loan 12 months earlier.
Hermann Hreidarsson has probably come as the biggest (in many ways!) and most pleasant surprise to me. He's been an excellent asset, not least as a marauding left-back-cum-winger, with possibly the best cross at the club.
And why he's not taking direct free-kicks to the right of goal, I don't know.
But we've lost Matty Taylor, who - while not a regular - would surely have brought us much-need strength in depth, not least during these dark few weeks of limbo between our two Wembley dates.
And we've lost Benjani Mwaruwari, whose move has been largely accepted because it meant we got Jermain Defoe.
And no one in their right minds is going to argue that Defoe wasn't a fantastic signing.
But let's just look at the old scoreboard a minute - Defoe eight goals in seven, followed by none in five - a total of 0.66 goals a game.
And Benjani? Seven goals in six, midway through a season where he totalled 13 in 25 - at 0.52 goals a game.
Not a phenomenal difference.
And while the redeeming feature for Defoe during much of the relative drought that has followed his record-breaking goalscoring start for Pompey has been his clever runs and never-say-die attitude, isn't that exactly what we said kept Benjani in our good books during the leaner times?
I'm certainly not saying we shouldn't have Defoe - someone I'd been hoping we'd sign for years.
Just that maybe the actual difference between the Pompey of 12 months ago and the one of today may not really be so great after all.
New Formation
We're still selling to buy (O'Neil, Benjani, Taylor) - and that's quite understandable. We're still getting only 20,000 home gates and Sasha has ploughed a lot of money into the club.
But if the likes of Diarra, Defoe and even Diop were recruited in addition to those players, I think the improvement in the club would be more tangibly measured.
OK. Back to the comparison.
Better performances? Well, regardless of how we do against Fulham, we have more points than last season - three at the last count.
But in an odd sort of series of leagues within leagues, we are currently actually farther from the fourth Champions League place than we were a year ago - 16 points against 14.
More goals? Just - 48 against 45, though without those seven (including a Benjani hat-trick) against Reading, we'd be behind.
We've conceded far fewer, though, and that is certainly a fair reflection of a superior and far more settled defence in front of a consistently magnificent David James this term.
More wins? Yes - 16 against 14.
Fewer defeats? Well, provided we survive against Fulham (how ridiculous did that sound a few weeks ago?), we'll have lost the same number as last season - 12.
Better away? Undoubtedly. A magnificent nine wins in the league on our travels (not to mention our FA Cup exploits) make this season comparable with our very best.
And it was only in our final away fixture of the season that our goal difference fell into the negative.
But the flipside of that is that we're nowhere near the force at home that we were last year - despite our 7-4 drubbing of Reading and Defoe scoring in each of his first five home games for the club.
Sure, we've still lost only three (so far), but we've won only seven compared with 11 last year - a home points shortfall of nine before our last league game of the season.
New formation?
Yes, we enjoyed four consecutive home league wins - our Premier League best. But we also went more than half a dozen games without a goal at home - a club "worst".
And as for performances? Reading and Aston Villa home and away, Newcastle away - magnificent. Middlesbrough, Spurs (home and away) - and a few more - not so impressive.
Harry and Tony seem to have found a key to winning away with 4-5-1, which suited the team for much of the season.
But in recent weeks, that has failed - and with Defoe to accommodate now, they may need to find a different formation to get the best out of Pompey now.
And few would say the football served up for much of the season at Fratton has been anywhere near as good as that in our debut season at this level, let alone last term.
So improvement? Definitely. Progress? Undoubtedly. Unprecedented experiences for most fans? Well, Wembley twice in a season should answer that.
But let's not get carried away. We're doing really well and are heading in the right direction.
But we're not there yet.
And finally… Are you in the camp that feels we just have to turn up at Wembley to lift the cup? That results in our final few league games don't matter?
It won't come as any surprise to most of you to learn that I'm certainly not. We're not good enough to turn it on just like that.
Winning is habit-forming. And so is losing. Cardiff may be a division lower, but they will be boosted by a couple of decent end-of-season results.
No, they don't count on the day, but winning (and losing) does funny things to footballers' heads. Confidence is a brittle thing sometimes.
Of course, we can do what we've done for most of the cup campaign and perform averagely or poorly and still win.
But we might just get caught out.
And I'd be happier if we went to Wembley on the back of a morale-boosting final-day win over Fulham, with a few of our players enjoying the welcome - but all-too-rare - sight recently, of seeing the ball nestling in the opposition net a few times.