I always thought that as well, and was similarly jealous. But in doing these port comparisons, I’ve found that the C64 often got a really bad port. See my Bomb Jack post the other day, for example.
If you can look past the visuals and sound, the Spectrum ports often capture the feel of the arcade the best of all. It’s probably about 45-45-10 (C64-Speccy-Amstrad), with the Amstrad getting some rare gems like Renegade.