Wauwatosa, WI
Quoted from smassa:I think it comes down do how much space you have. I decided to go for fewer pins in nicer condition then having maybe a few more in avg condition. There is no right or wrong, decide for yourself if you prefer a few nice a listers or maybe 8-10 "B/C" titles.
Maybe to you they aren't that fun but it appears you are in the minority in that regard wether you want to believe it or not.
To be fair, if you really look at the A list titles, there are three things that generally play into their cost, and home fun-factor, until recently, really hasn't been a consideration... Consider this:
1) Themes that are well loved and family friendly always fit everywhere and in everyone's game line up. Games like Judge Dredd, Demolition Man, Starship Troopers, and so on are violent enough that it turns some families off. Same with Playboy and a slew of other games that have girls on the playfield. None of the A-list titles have any questionable themes at all.
2) The games that are so popular are generally strong earners (TZ being a big exception here) that you had to pry out of the hands of operators. JD earned crap on route, so the perception was that it was a bad game and it was sold cheaply. MM earned a ton more than new games on route, so it was always going to be worth more than the latest and greatest.
3) And because of that earning, people who only want one or two want a game that is family friendly and a game that they remember. No one remembers the games that ran through arcades quickly, but everyone remembers the MM that made money for 15 years and can't be found any more, or the TAF that is still out there taking coins, or whatever.
All of the above created a market where the actual gameplay is secondary when considering the cost, or at least it did during the Bally / Williams era and the first 8 or so years of the 2000s. Now, gameplay in new games really does seem to matter, as ops have faded out.
The perfect example of this I think is TOM and / or TOTAN. Both of them are amazingly stunning looking games with totally family friendly themes. Neither theme is dated by age. They both earned really well on route...
...but, the actual gameplay that they have if you are a better player simply isn't there. I can't think of one person I consider a "great" player who loves either one of them because of how the software is set up.
Personally, I like games that are amazingly tough, and those are games that generally didn't do anything in arcades because they were too tough. My entire collection basically consists of games that are B-C titles by choice, and I could have gotten A titles many times in the past. It's all personal preference though - with few exceptions, the games that I used to play aren't as interesting to me as the games that I want to play today 
