I didn’t grow up in a kollel home. I still feel like I grew up in a Torah home nonetheless.
Definitely not a stirah.
I agree that you can’t compare someone who completely made the choice to learn in kollel on his own to someone who just went with the “system”, but the “system” has raised the bar tremendously as far as level of frumkeit and commitment to learning, even if not full time in kollel, so don’t dismiss it.
Yes, to a degree, we are victims of our own success, but high expectations are not necessarily a bad thing.
As long as you want to marry someone committed to a Torah home, I respect your choice and right to make it, but I will point out that there’s a difference between whether someone doesn’t want to learn in kollel (and BTW, I don’t mean necessarily a formal kollel, I just mean full time learning) and someone who finds that he can’t.