Isn't this the normal progression in any hobby though? I don't think this is exclusive to bonsai.
Once you know what you are doing and dive deep into any hobby you look to upgrade your tools/materials. You are not going to buy Trek Fuel EX 9.9 if you have never been mountain biking before. You are not going to invest in a SawStop table saw to cut your first board. And you certainly are not going to get a Alienware Aurora if you signed up for a Steam account for the first time yesterday. My point is that hobbies and interests evolve over time and as you become better at them and have a more refined eye, your tastes change and you become more willing to invest money in your hobby/interest to keep progressing to the next level.
Something I do think is more exclusive to bonsai though is that advanced practitioners denigrate or at least are dismissive of the journey as if everyone should get to "their level" right away. I see no issue with
@SockUnicorn having this many trees or even not working all of them. Like he said, he doesn't have kids, a wife, and has lots of down time from his chosen career. So if anyone has time to care for them he does. But if he did happen to run out of time one year and didn't get around to working every one of them...who the hell cares? He is not letting any imperial masterpieces go to pasture so to speak. This is because he has, like many just staring their journey, designed his garden that way: containing accessible material of many different varieties in order to figure out what interests him and what excites him. The ones he works and develops year after year will eventually become better and better, hopefully reaching showable quality. The ones that don't get worked he will realize he is not that into for whatever reason. They will end up being donated to a club, sold to finance other (better) trees, or eventually his eye for bonsai will develop to a point where he sees a new direction and will redesign the tree completely, rekindling his interest in it.
It is silly to think someone 1.5 years into their journey knows what style, species, soil makeup, wiring techniques, pruning timing, overwintering setup, pest control, and etc. works best for their microclimate and personal abilities. Thus, experimentation with 60+ trees that the community won't lose sleep over if one of them passes is a good thing and should be celebrated and encouraged as such. Then if somewhere down the line
@SockUnicorn decides he want to winnow down his collection, ending up with 10-30 high quality trees including some that
@rockm or
@Adair M might think is at least a "facsimile of a bonsai" it will be the
result of his journey not
despite of it.