You really don't want to understand this, do you? To say hell is a state doesn't mean it has no physical aspect. It means the physical aspects are intrinsic to the reality of the sinner, and not extrinsic to where the sinner is. The fire of Gehenna came from the constant consumption of the trash tossed into it, not from an external fuel source.
In Jesus' story of Lazarus and the 'rich man', he said the rich man went to Hell, and He described part of that rich man's punishment as being physically thirsty for water.
How did he thirst? He had no body. The thirst he spoke of was from his soul seeing the material fire all about it caused by its eternal consumption as human refuse by the fire of God. The rich man's soul was aflame, and it thirsted because of the fire of its own destruction in the presence of the consumming fire of God.
The fire of God warms and enlightens the saints (Apocalypse 22.5), refines the imperfect by burning away their dross (1 Corinthians 3.12-15), and consumes the damned (Hebrews 12.29, St. Matthew 10.28).
The eternal state of the person is the reaction of their soul to being brought into the presence of God.
Perhaps many people want to deny that Hell is a real "place" because they don't want to fathom what it would be like to be there.
Perhaps you want it to be a real place because you find the whole idea of God loving sinners to be contrary to your picture of Him?
Jesus said the rich man wanted to have a drop of water placed on his tongue. Just for your information, the tongue is part of the human body.
As for your theory about Gehenna and Hell, you said that the fires of Gehenna were perpetual due to the constant dumping of trash into the pit. And what exactly do you think the souls of the damned are, if not trash? In any case, God can keep fires going without any external cause, just as He did with the burning bush and Moses. Hell is indeed a place. Many Saints and visionaries have been allowed to see Hell by God. Fatima, fully 'worthy of belief' by the faithful, is but one example where the visionaries saw hideous monster-like beings, (humans deformed by their sin), being physically tossed to and fro in the raging inferno. Finally, if the Council of Trent, the most definitive Council of all time, declares that Hell is PLACE of physical as well as spiritual suffering, no Pope's personal little catechism can abbrogate that infallible Council.