This thread is triggering my current minimalist ethos.
I mean.... emulators?? More stuff than you guys have time for??? AHHHH! Its stressing me out lol.
I used to have a small collection of PC games and for a while saved the cases of all of the PC/PS3 games I got and I displayed them. Somewhere I have a picture. Even picked up a genesis, PS1, PS2 at yard sales and trolled goodwill's.
I threw out most of my PC and PS3 cases and sold off anything that had value to local game store. I don't miss it.
In my early 20s I threw out nearly everything, for the same reasons you mentioned. I could run games in emulators, didn't want to manage a bunch of physical stuff, etc.
In my 30s I started collecting again. Partly for nostalgia, partly because I'm better settled now (less nomadic, and have a place to keep my stuff), partly to share with my kids. Also started to notice the limitations of the emulator scene... especially n64 emulation, which at the time was not great, and even now has never really achieved the same level of compatibility and stability of other console emulators.
My current game room setup has 9 CRTs and a couple of HDtvs, many different new and retro consoles, and I'm working on building a couple of arcade units. Sure, I don't play every console every day, but they all get some playtime, at least every once in awhile. My kids like to sample them in the evenings, and sometimes dive-in deeper into various versions of Zelda or Mario Kart. It's extra fun having everything setup this way, rather than just running emulators off of a PC. Sure, it's extravagant, and it makes my wife roll her eyes, but that was kindof the point.
My mom was a bit of a hoarder, so I've always been a bit conscientious of that. To me, there's a difference though, between collecting and hoarding. A collection has a proper place to be displayed and used, not just piled up in storage... Ironically, I think that's a big part of why I have collected so many CRTs, so that all the game stuff can be out, setup, on display, and ready to play... ironically makes it less of a hoarding thing. While I do have some items in storage, I don't believe in keeping things in storage long-term, or keeping things that I'm unlikely to ever sort, use, or maintain.
The emulation scene has evolved alot in the last several years though. Projects like MiSter make a very strong case that we can now throw out alot of old hardware, unless we have nostalgia tied to the actual physical devices. I'm also fascinated by the way that many modern emulators are enhancing games above and beyond their original constraints, such as running n64 & PS1 games in widescreen, stable 60fps, and getting rid of the wobbly polygons, etc... becoming something of a remaster rather than a perfect recreation. How that impacts collectoring, I'm not really sure.