Thinking about this "army building" subject, I was curious, do any of you NOT army build? I mean, is there anyone that just likes to collect 1 (or two if you are carded and loose) of each figure, and forget about getting extras of the various "troops"? I'm sure it would be a lot cheaper and easier to hunt around.
I fall into this category, although there have been random points in the past that I've attempted to build an army in a moment of weakness and/or excess money (a real rarity). Between my health and my finances (because of said health), I'm having to thin out a lot of older things that I do have multiples of. Plus, I just don't have the room for any real dioramas or anything like that, and my entire loose figure collection is stored in Plano 3700 series tackle boxes, so it kind of defeats the purpose of army building for me.
That said, I do still have multiples of certain figures for vehicle purposes, mainly the three Clone Pilots from ROTS and the 2 Clone Pilots from AOTC, piloting the ARC-170 and the AOTC Gunship, respectively (plus I needed to get two of the ball cannons for the Gunship). If there is a paint variation that is obvious and intentional (like the non-animated ARC Trooper or the Target Clone, which I haven't found yet), I'll buy one of each variation, but nothing more.
And (again) that said, I would like to get two of the Target Clone so I can open one and hang the other on the wall alongside Holo Yoda and Lava Vader to kind of complete the set I suppose. This is easier said than done, though.
I think that army building is certainly cool and interesting if you do it for the reasons that Chewie does it (what with his photo novels and interest in dioramas) and so many others do it (a friend of mine who bought over 200 Stormtroopers during the early POTF2 days on clearance so he could make a diorama of the Emperor's Arrival on DS2 with his Shuttle). When it becomes irritating is when the person building the army isn't doing it for enjoyment, but for his Ebay store. Someone buying 10 Clones for dioramas is much more likely to let you have your one out of their cart if you ask; the guy doing it for Ebay will laugh at you and offer to sell it to you for ten in the parking lot.