I just once had a problem with a Kotobukiya Rei: I broke the seat of the bike when trying to pull out one of the plastic "protections"... it wasn't difficult to fix but it sucks all the same. Another problem that comes with removing those plastics, or with cast-off figs, is the possibility of peinture from the clothes to indent the skin or something.

I kind of know that feeling I guess, even though I never ever bought a fig - I'm a NEET so where should I get the money from? I would feel sick if I were to spend my parents' money like that.

I remember that back in the day when someone would remove wrapping from anything I bought (be it games or anything else) I was ready to gauge their eyeballs out. Goddamn normals, they didn't even know what they have done wrong! Oh well. The worst kind of offense was punching stuff out from punch sheets in boardgames. That's half the fun of buying the game you idiots!

Three or so years ago I bought two Guildwars collector's edition expansions (Nightfall and Factions) even though I don't own the main game (well, they are standalone expansions but still). They were like 10$ each at my local game store so I just kinda picked them up. They are still unopened. (Digression: For some retarded reason I often don't play the games I buy.)

So again, I know what you mean. And I guess I really would leave my figs unopened if I could buy any. There are lots of reasons for this but here's one that I only realized as valid lately: just owning something makes me satisfied. You don't really have to do anything with it once you bought it (like me and said games). It's kind of hard to explain why but overall it's the feeling that if you wanted you could play it/listen to it/put it on you shelf anytime. I don't know if that makes any sense but that's how I always feel (I even bought some consoles I barely use just so I could say 'well if I wanted I could download any of those games and play them'). It's just to eliminate this feelings of not possessing something you'd like to have.

I did broke my Figma BRS left arm; but it wasn't because of the box, but because I was still unfamiliar with the joints functioning (i.e. because I was stupid). But I glued it to a convenient pose and it was ok; I don't really change their poses that much or that often anyway.

When I first started collecting. But then I realized, "What good is a toy (albeit a collectible one) if you don't play with it?" But the especially rare ones I keep in their box to admire for a few days.

Yeah I've got a few.

Part of it is due to value, I half worry about the day when my savings drys up and I'm left with money trubble, it might be a last resort scinario, but if things get really bad, I might end up having to sell some of my figs, so it kind of worrys be a bit in the back of my head.

dust/damage/condision is another thing, I'm not crazy about the idea of them collecting dust or possibly getting damaged somehow, I wish I had more room for another display case, but even then, I noticed dust is starting to build up in the case, so even there my figs aren't safe from dust.
but as someone here said, what's the point of buying them if you're never gonna open em? that's what got me to open a marisa fig I could have sold for like $200+ on ebay, but the fact of the matter was, I didn't buy it to sell it, I hunted down that pacific fig because I wanted it.

Then there's the fact that I don't have a ton of room left for figs, my fig case is crammed full, and my shelves are cluttered.
Many figs are hidden behind other figs becuase of this as is.

One last deciding factor is my laziness.
sometime back I started taking tons of pics of my figs as I unbox them, but setting up the lightbox for the photo shoots and all, like I said, I'm lazy sometimes.