… and be happy 
I don’t really understand how amateurs, so professionals excluded, can have zillions of plugins, can be happy with that heap, and can survive with such a complex hobby-life… 
Far from it, I decided to simplify many things in my life, notably my hobbies, so I sold/still selling plugins, I am about ten now, and I am able to make music like before or even better: GAS defeated 
BTW, the same happened for photography, where I sold a heavy and complex multi-lens mirrorless setup in favour of one high-end bridge camera that lets me shoot from macro to 600mm with just one 600grams body
BTW, checking tons of shoots made in the past, with many different combos, some cheaper and other more expensive, I saw little changes in my ability to do better shoots, and I think it applies to music as well
After all, there are musicians able to play amazing songs with a cigar box
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Well I am a professional so I can’t answer for the amateur crowd. But the reality for most is that I only use maybe a couple dozen or so plug ins on a regular basis. Or I would say I have maybe 10 or so go to audio plug ins, about 5 or 6 go to MIDI or composition assistant plug ins, like Scaler and then I have a larger handful of virtual instruments I use regularly (maybe another dozen or so, keeping in mind that instruments like Musio have hundreds of instrumnets and Kontakt I probably have a few hundred libraries for). But when I just installed Scaler 3 it found somewhere around 380 plug ins. Yeah I don’t use half of those on a regular basis. My most used DAW is Nuendo and that makes it easy to organize all your various plug ins and virtual instrument. So there are folders with the stuff I want to get to regularly and then there is everything else that gets used once in a blue moon, when I’m bored or experimenting or just looking for something to give me a new idea.
Sure, this is why I included amateurs and I excluded professionals
Nevertheless, it seems to me that in the photography field (another creative field) amateurs tend to have more devices, due to false hopes to become professionals automatically, while professionals tend to save money to make the investment profitable so they buy less and keep devices more time…
Well that’s certainly not the case for me. Sure I’m kind of a hard sell these days because I already have so many options for any one type of tool. When I see a new music composition aid like Scaler or another reverb or compressor, etc.. I’m probably going to ignore it the first couple of times I hear about it until I maybe take the time to look into it and see if it really is something worthwhile and new.
But with Sample Libaries for example, I have probably a dozen or more complete sets of orchestral sample libraries. I’m primarily a sound designer tor theatre, so I never have enough sound effects libraries, especially for the cliches like thunder, wind and rain. But despite having way too many of some of these tools, I often will buy new ones for a couple of reasons. One, because I really like the company, and I want to support their work no matter if I need that library or not. These are usually the smaller companies, with one to three people or so and I want to help keep them around. And the second reason is I often find taking the time to dig through new sounds helps give me ideas and motivates me to tinker, rather than just do the same old thing I did 10 times already.
Point is, there are certainly plenty of things I have that I really don’t “need”. But none the less they are nice to have and there are only a few examples I would say something like “boy, I wish I hadn’t wasted my money on that…”. Same with microphones. I have an entire closet full of microphones. I probably “need” about 10 or 12 of them. Although once in a blue moon I need to mic an entire orchestra pit and then I do need all or most of them.
What any one artist truly needs or what they will actually make use of as opposed to collecting dust will vary a lot depending on what it is that you do. But take your time and try to lay off the impulse buys unless you have the funds to burn and it doesn’t matter. Support good vendors when you can.
Not sure if that’s helpful or even on topic any longer. But I hope it is worthwhile to someone.