I had the cool 80's toys growing up, but didn't start collecting until senior year of high school. POTF2 had just hit and they were AMAZING (at the time, LOL). Toy Biz was also doing the Marvel stuff and I collected X-Men figs. I also collected Beast Wars Transformers and Kenner AvP stuff. That went on for a few more years until those lines petered out. I moved onto Gundam models and figs around the time Cartoon Network started airing "Gundam Wing". I collected Lego Bionicles for most of their existence for the sheer pleasure of making original works. My TF collection continued right up until a couple of years ago when I got back into SW. Started out with clones, astromechs and Mandos. Got to customizing them and went from there. I don't think of myself as a collector anymore, and have sold most of my collections. I really only buy figs to customize now, but will occassionally pick up a cool fig from time to time (such as Snake Eyes, Cable & Deadpool from Marvel U, Iron Man) to go on the collection shelf. I've customized figs from every line I collected, but now my primary focus is the customization of SW figs, along with whatever else looks like it'd be fun to "pimp out"...like my new Kenner Predator upgrades.
Oh, anyone remember "Stikfas"? They were so awesome for a customizer. I think they got bought by Hasbro and Big H used the body arcitecture for Xevoz and as the basis for Sigma 6 GI Joe. I still have a dozen Stikfa characters somewheres.