I understand the need for hoarding tabs but it boggles my mind how people navigate tiny tabs and remember where everything is. In fact, they probably don't since I keep seeing people clicking back and forth a few times before finding the right tab.
I have been using tree style tabs on Firefox for so long, I can't function without it. I can nest tabs together and collapse them, but most importantly, I can read all the tab titles due to the vertical layout.
I'm down to 7800 tabs (30 windows) on my main desktop. 4K on my other, 2K on my laptops. High was >11000 tabs. Firefox makes this easy; takes ~30 seconds to open all those windows and load a tab per window (plus ~8 pinned tabs)
"% string" in the awesome bar completes against tabs only. Helps a ton, along with some about:config settings that open new tabs from pinned tabs at the right (end) of the tab list. Also windows for separate contexts (though tab groups may also work here now, and avoid the overhead of opening a window/loading a tab at startup).
And "About Tabs" extension from glandium (who works for mozilla)
I have been using tree style tabs on Firefox for so long, I can't function without it. I can nest tabs together and collapse them, but most importantly, I can read all the tab titles due to the vertical layout.