Zo!  
 
As usual, you summed it all up most beautifully!  The ONLY effect I've bought this year is SoundToys, as the bundle offering of $180 for ALL their awesome stuff (due to me owning two freebees!) was irresistible and everyone I queried on the forum agrees that this is a MUST HAVE and $180 is a killer deal.  It's something I've always wanted, for EchoBoy alone... and the long 32 bit transition caused me to look elsewhere.
 
I own a zillion synths and Kontakt libraries and can quite honestly say I could be quite fine with Omnisphere (due to Skippy's awesome expansions) and Kontakt (with a smattering of sound libraries I love) alone.  The beauty of something like Omnisphere is it can do almost everything and is supported by some of the BEST sound designers in the buis...Thus, once you own it, you can just buy soundpacks and are supporting creative small developers/artists  like US!  
 
Of course, whatever floats ur boat!  

Vastman
I own a zillion synths and Kontakt libraries and can quite honestly say I could be quite fine with Omnisphere (due to Skippy's awesome expansions) and Kontakt (with a smattering of sound libraries I love) alone.  The beauty of something like Omnisphere is it can do almost everything and is supported by some of the BEST sound designers in the buis...Thus, once you own it, you can just buy soundpacks and are supporting creative small developers/artists  like US!  
 
Of course, whatever floats ur boat!  

Agree 100%, though I dont have a zillion synths, I have put off getting Komplete, because I dont actually need it, except for Kontakt for some specific sound libraries, and are wishing I was buying omnisphere 2 instead for reasons you outlined.
 
Even with the limited library I have, it would take years to fully explore and utilise all the tools and samples I already have!

The one thing really irritating me right now is that people who I am pretty dedicated to buying are now pumping out libraries and plugins faster and faster. I like to support these people but it's becoming harder when they keep putting out new product several times a month. I've cut back a bit on the spending as I start preparing for winter sales but I've been buying some things here and there such as the OTS sale which I simply couldn't pass up or I'd be kicking myself later. So glad I did.
 
It's going to get to a point where I have to spend time looking at each one very carefully before I decide to buy in regardless of who makes it because they keep pumping them out too quick.

Speaking of YouTube, I'm a fan of the Premier Guitar Rig Rundown series. Watch a few of these and you'll see a common thread among long-experienced guitarists: minimal gear. I especially enjoyed the Don Felder episode.
 
Now, you can say that these are about guitarists, not producers. That the scope of what guitarists do sonically isn't as vast and they don't need that many options. But take a look at how stompboxes, guitars and guitar amplifiers are marketed. The audio plugin market didn't invent this marketing strategy. They just adapted the same age-old "sell the sizzle" concept that equates beer brands to fun and sex, hair implants to wealth and corporate success, and pickup trucks to manhood. They hold out the promise of a better life, one that can be purchased.
 
Vastman's post above was right on the mark. Ask anyone who has hundreds or thousands of plugins, and they'll all tell you the same thing: 10% of them are useful, 1% of them are go-to tools, and 0.1% of them are essential. But 100% of them gave you a thrill when you first bought them.

"Pickup trucks to manhood"?
Jeez, I'll never grow up.

And window shopping is nearly impossible so stay away from the Software and Deals forums

Solved the problem! My car died.... No plugin money for me for a while!

Ah, that was my solution - hardware (tho none of mine have died like your car). 
 
1.  Good hardware going in (or rerecorded with same) means I don't need so much software.  Saturation/distortion/tone?  It is better with hardware than replicated in software, in my opinion.  I seldom need more or different than what I recorded.  So digital can do what it does best - control levels and subtractive eq (yes, Virginia, I still use soft comps and digital EQ) - nice clean control.
 
2.  I still pick up software for things hardware is ill suited.  I just picked up a granular effects for like $50.
 
3.  Hardware is so expensive I run out of money quicker, which means I don't torture myself (too much!) over sales.  I simply can't afford it.
 
hope this helps.
 
@

Real life has a habit of getting in the way of fun, doesn't it?
 
OTOH, financial constraints can be a good thing. Look what happens to so many 20-year-old millionaire athletes, entertainers and trust-fund kids. They can afford all the cocaine they could possibly want, and that rarely ends well. One of the reasons I've made it to my ripe old age is that in my 20's I was a poor working musician struggling to make ends meet.

Reminds me many years ago living in Denver Colorado.
 
Had a music studio on the south side and often haunted the north side of the city where all the bars, whore houses and pawn shops were. Looking for music gems in the pawn shops, would often have to pass over dead bodies in the street. Was said that some of these were the 20 yo sports stars, if you could recognize them. Burned themselves out life in the fast lane. Squandered millions, end of their career and fame. Never planned for the future and ended up a nameless drug OD or suicide.
 
Back in the time, applied for a drivers job with the county morgue since there was an opening.
 
In south Denver, a common sight was the Happy Farms Ice Cream Truck and they needed a new driver. Had a freckled girl painted on the outside holding balloons and dancing through a grassy meadow with happy cows. Never stopped to sell ice cream though.
 
Sports stars and not sport stars were common casualties for various reasons on the north side. The state collected the unclaimed bodies and kept them in a freezer. When the freezer was full, they had to transport the bodies to the cremation site on the south side of Denver.
 
Only way to get from the north to the south side was through downtown Denver proper.
 
The state had a decoy truck, Happy Farms Ice Cream with the girl and balloons.
 
It would load up the frozen bodies and drive them through downtown to the cremation site.
Seems the former driver loaded up the ice cream truck with bodies and forgot to close the back door.
He drove through downtown Denver dumping frozen corpses into the street from the Happy Farms Ice Cream truck. Cover was blown and the guy fired.
 
I was all excited to drive the ice cream truck, but my driving record was so bad I didn’t get the job.
 
Back in the studio then, had a Ross compressor. Went into an MXR distortion box. Depending on the need, a Ross flanger or Ross delay was followed by a floor hardware MXR noise gate. That was it.
 
Cranked out music with hard on dedication and inspiration.
 
Have a thousand times the arsenal now with potential I could have never dreamed of in the analog era.
I’m not doing much creative these last years however other than playing along with somebody else’s mp3 for practice. Spending a whole lot of dedicated time crafting the right sound, even if nothing ultimately creative happens beyond a new preset or fx chain.
 
End result is in the mind and spirit of the inspiration and physical connection with our hands and feet..
 
If you got one decent reverb plug and can’t create, a second reverb, much less 10 or 20 reverbs will only lead to greater darkness.
 
John