Personally speaking, the notion of buying toys and not playing with them makes about as much sense to me as buying a book and never reading it. If I ever start feeling inclined to stop playing with toys, that's when I'll stop collecting - and quite frankly I'd consider getting rid of any toys I don't play with anymore.

Some of you have seen my recent sales threads for various non TF toys like Marvel, DC, Street Fighter, Warcraft, Starcraft, Halo TMNT etc. -- these are all toys that I no longer play with, hence I've sold them. There are some other toys that I haven't played with in ages too (Star Wars, GI Joe, LotR etc.) which I am contemplating about selling (don't worry, you'll see me posting a sales thread for these toys if I do decide to part with them ).

I don't put my toys on shelves primarily for display purposes (although that is a secondary reason) - it's something I started doing as a kid to:
a/ Make them more accessible to play with (as opposed to rummaging through toy boxes)
b/ Protect them from damage if they were in toy boxes, as Transformers during my childhood were often the most easily breakable if squashed in a box full of MotU, GI Joes, Star Wars etc.

But recently, especially since my daughter was born, I'm lucky if I have time to play with my Transformers -- I very rarely have time to play with other toys, and as such I've done the unthinkable -- I've put them in storage!! Seriously... once a toy's in a closed box tucked away out of sight in my garage... what's the freakin' point of keeping those toys?!? To me that feels more like hoarding rather than collecting. So yeah... keep your eyes peeled on the non-TF sales sections folks.