Slave: even though you agree with my side of the argument, i have to disagree with your idea. While collecting may be good for some people’s middos, i would just like to point out that some people do not benefit from collecting. I know people who have had serious gaavah problems because they were very successful in their collecting (even though its all from hashem, and our hishtadlus is limited to knocking on a door), and I know people who were not successful collecting and then had self esteem issues (once again, it had nothing to do with them).
I am aware that these boys had gaava or self esteem problems anyway, but the collecting definitely exacerbated the problems.