members and their systems

People put loads of money into all types of things.  Fishing for example, be it fresh or saltwater.  Look at all of the ordinary Joes who have a bass boat parked in their driveway.  Someone who is seriously into bass fishing has at least a 50K investment in just the basics.  There are Hundreds of thousands of rabid Bass fisherman/women out there.  The same with Hunters.  I've seen guys with gun collections which are incredible and the amount of money they spend is up there.  Harley Davidson lovers, Hot Dodders, etc.. very easy for these guys to have spent anywhere from 50-100K on their passions.  People who drop serious change on audio equipment are not odd ducks.  There are different passions out there spending like money.  

Spending a lot on fishing, hunting, biking, automotive gear is understood and considered normal. Big spending on audio equipment sounds idiotic to many, when in fact it is all quite idiotic. Unless, of course, you have nothing better to do. Then it makes some sense.
$100k and that's enough, people, moderation time.

I’m with millercarbon on this. The query lacks focus.  

I suspect accumulation is the key to how many get to higher priced systems. I started out many years ago asking the same question; all this high priced equipment, how can people afford it?
Starting out with beginner equipment, over many years buying mostly used and selling the old I can afford the more expensive. I sometimes look at the total retail on my equipment and wonder how I got here! For some of us it takes nearly a lifetime to get to sound quality we could only dream about decades ago.