Yes, I am also a complete ignoramus about anime culture and or what it stands for.
So my impulsive figure buying is solidly based on. Artistic details and Price.
But regardless of artistic details, aesthetics or popularity no piece of polymer is worth 1 1/2 hours of my hard earned money.

I also think that buying figures blindly left and right is no good idea, on each purchase the person should think about if it is a figure the person really wants or not.

Of course figure collecting for a longer period of time or collecting in general is not something something everyone enjoys.

A hobby is not always reasonable, be it the financial aspect or the time invested into it. personally. I really like to take creative picures of my figures, sure the majority still buys them mainly because they are very nice looking merchandise, but that’s also fine.

Indeed there are always too many figures on the market, decisions always have to be made, but that is also something that make the figure collecting hobby interesting or even exciting.

lol “being looked at with disgust” with the quality of current figures that is not really the case, except the arrangement looks crowded and messy or the room is a fanservice cave XD.
People are only getting curious sometimes, because they never saw anime figures before.

Impulse buys can be nice, but in general one should really think about the purchases for media, figures, tools or other non essential goods.

My rules are pretty much “characters I know” and “empty spaces”, lol. I don’t know when I started adapting such rules, but they developed very naturally in my mind and it’s been like that since.

It’s important for each person to review what VALUE figures (or anything that you spend money on, for that matter) can offer him; just like how spending money on food is almost a necessity–What do figures have to offer you and how much value do you place on it?

This is just my own opinion, but figures only “give back” to the owner that aesthetic pleasure. That feeling of being there and looking good, and that’s pretty much all it offers.

At least for me, I held very little values to “aesthetic pleasure”. I often can’t even touch said figures fearing I would dirty them, there are more than one figure within a series and several hundred series that I’d like to collect them, and unlike perhaps pieces of art in the medival times, you can’t really invite your friends/family over to brag about your figure collection… Unless being looked at with cold eyes and sometimes disgust is your thing

Repeating what I said earlier, I control my impulses on buying things (not only figures) simply by reviewing what kind of return it can offer me for spending my money on it. Figures happened to be absolutely abysmal in this sense allowing me to quit buying them permanently, and my general rule of thumb for spending money is: “If you pause for at least 10 minutes and wonder if you’ll regret buying it, you’ll almost always regret buying it in the future”

Setting more accurate rules is definitely a good idea, haha I throw most of my rules out of the window,
after 8 years of figure collecting. Nowadays it’s mainly based on a order limit per month and my budget available ;D
Do you always follow your rules accurately or do you sometimes bend these rules to get the figure you want?

In the first place I actually want to keep buying new figures, even when I have to sell a few of the older ones, that I don’t really like so much anymore.

For me impulse buys are partially something that I regret ;D
They might happen in a month where I should not buy an additional figure.
My impulse purchases are mainly triggered by user pictures after the figure was released, sometimes I look at figures for a while, I like them, but sometimes I have second thoughts considering the quality or if I really need it. So after I’ve seen the final figure and it looks really unresistable for me, there is not much that can prevent me from throwing my money at it.

I don’t run wild with impulse buys, but from time to time it simply happens.

Is it a mecha musume/moe gijinka/armored girl? > Does it have a unique Accessory? > Does it have great posability? > Is it camera friendly?

if they check at least 3 of those i’d get it in a heartbeat, no questions asked.