Steven,
Way, way back when, as I started doing almost as much graphic design, as I was advertising photography, Adobe had a neat collection of fonts, and offered them on CD, in preview. One could use that collection, with the included viewer, to find the font (from the Adobe collection), and then buy the license for that. At a point, they offered a killer deal on the whole collection (about 5,000 Adobe PS fonts, IIRC). I bought the whole deal, so that I did not have to search through the collection, then buy each necessary font, as needed. It came to about $0.25/font, so I sprung for it. Not all THAT long later, Adobe dropped that collection (will have to find one of those old CD's, to recall the name of that), and sort of cooled it, regarding fonts, for a bit.
I have also bought many display fonts, from foundries like Chank, as those were needed, along with many LinoType font families.
In that pile of fonts, I also have several free font collections, however many of those found their way to the trashcan, as they were not well-written, and did not work well in many Adobe programs.
Last, I have been creating some fonts, that contribute to the bloat.
Not counted in that number are about 1,000 Corel fonts from the earlier CorelDraw program. Those did not work that well with Adobe programs, and most post-production houses refused to buy them, so I found little use for them. Still have all those CD's, but have not used any in decades. I still use the clip art from some of those collections, but not so much anymore.
Now that I do mostly video, my font usage has slowed to a crawl. I still head over to Chank, from time to time, seeking a specific "look" for a display font in a Title (usually a Main Title), but like I once did. Also, and for years, every month Chank would offer some "free fonts," and out of habit, I would just click the link in their e-mails, and get those. They WERE well-written, and I cannot recall ever having one not work in an Adobe program. Over the last few years, I have probably used fewer than the fonts currently installed, though still have my Font Sets for Projects and clients (though I have retired).
Guess that collecting fonts just became a hobby? 
Hunt