For me, dust collection has been a project to complete. An aspect of the construction of my dream shop. The one I plan to spend my retirement years in creating beautiful wood things. Up until I moved where I live now, dust collection was a 2HP G0548 with a couple 10' hoses and a rigid shop vac. Once I started planning building my dream shop, (after a 4 year hiatus without any shop), dust collection became an integral part of the overall plan. It took over 2, almost 3 years, to go from empty new shop building to having a well planned and executed DC system installed to meet my machine workflow pattern. Over the last 8 months I built an external insulated shed to house the cyclone, installed the cyclone and then installed all the spiral ducting. Now that I have all the major stuff done it is an absolute pleasure to work in an almost dust free shop. I can't imagine needing to spend any more time making a hobby out of tweaking my setup. Unless I add a machine beyond my existing plan, my focus will be elsewhere. However, I did spend a pile of money to "do it right the first time" because I saved specifically for what I had planned and waited until I was ready to execute in full and even that took 8 months to complete from start to finish.
I think a lot of the "dust collection hobbyists" just can't afford to do it all at once and feel they need to, so it is always an ongoing project to improve what they have and therefore becomes a quest to obtain a better system than what can initially be acquired. If you are constantly tweaking on the cheap it becomes a way of life. I made do with a $500 "gud nuff" DC for a lot of years before I finally pulled the trigger to get it all. Man was it worth the wait.