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Yeah, I know, this is the eternal debate and there's been numerous threads already about this subject. Still, I wanted to start fresh by telling what I think about this.

Allow me a little copy/pasta from another thread:

I'm sorry to say but I find this (buying expensive toys sealed and perfectly mint just to keep them sealed and sending them to AFA getting them graded and sealed again in a bullet-proof plexiglass box) completely ridiculous. Not only you are not going to enjoy these toys, you are sealing them away forever! Because you certailny wont be displaying the AFA boxes to protect them from any light. Not counting the fortune it will cost each time you are AFAing.

Hoh well, like we say, your stuff, your money.

I, too, am guilty of keeping part of my collection sealed in packaging. However, they are at 98% doubles of Transformers I already own. This way, if something happen to one of my peice, I have a spare to replace it. Also, yeah, speculation. Still, everybody keep toys sealed nowadays so a sealed toy from today will be worth way less than the good old vintage. Offers/demands.

Anyway, what I mean is please AFA to your heart's content. BUT if you have the money to buy the rare and expensive peices and paying the expensive AFAing, you do have the money to get the reisue and enjoy the toy.
That feel when you remove it from packaging. The pleasure to apply stickers. The fun to transform them back and forth, posing them, and making dioramas! These toys are meant to be played with. Dont deny yourself that, even if your double is in a different color.
For example, SDCC Bruticus is worth AFAing, but you can get the G2 color or the retail version as your double to enjoy the mold.

I have a collection of carded Transformers. The goal is a little speculation, maybe, but it's mostly to have ONE example of every kind of packagings possible. I usually buy the cheap and unpopular ones so that it's not too expensive, or if it's on sale in store. The "double rule" still stand. I enjoyed my Animated Oilslick so much that I bought it again brand new so that HE would be Animated's representative on my wall. For room reasons, I'm going to sell the other doubles of the same collection, like the other Animated, and I'm selling the few TF mint in sealed boxes that I own.

As for doubles, for me, a recolor of the same mold count. I have a pretty big Starscream collection, but the other two Thundercracker I have (one is Generations, the other is DotM) are kept sealed because I already have a classic Starscream and a DotM one.

Anyway, tl;dr, what's the point of buying a toy if you are not going to enjoy it one way or another and you'll just hide it away from sight?

As you said, it's been discussed, but what the hell, I'll bite. I'm bored.

I don't have a large collection ATM, but if I kept all the TFs I ever bought, I'd probably have around 1000. I don't like boxes, and I despise cards. I currently have about 100 TFs, and only my BotCon 2011 Stunticons and BotCon 2009 Astrotrain are in boxes, along with my MIB MP-09. I didn't even keep the box for MP-08, even though it's my favorite figure. I am of the opinion that figures are meant to be enjoyed by either playing with them (regardless of what age you are), at least transforming them once in a while, or just displaying them together on shelves and feel elation when you look at your collection. I still have the box for CR Brave Max, but only because it's a large figure and I have to have it in storage for the time being. All my smaller figures from all the lines I collected are open and on display. If the box is to be kept, it would have to look really nice and the insert must be easily removed and put back in, as well as the figure placed into the insert. This is why I hate the Bayverse leader class figure boxes. I would have liked to have kept them, but the inserts and twisties sucked, so I threw them all away. Bottom line, I keep boxes for rare figures, and boxes that are sturdy and mostly cardboard without flimsy plastic windows. Cardbacks and smaller figure boxes get torn up in my child-like enthusiasm for holding a figure for the first time. Latest victim: FoC Prime and Shockwave.

Toy Story 2 said it best.

I open just about everything. Have kept some of the larger boxes because they're handy for sticking stuff away when I don't have it out on display. Can't think of a single TF I've kept in packaging without opening, although my SFC G1 Megatron stays in the box most of the time. I've a few doubles of other figures that I have kept in box, for potential future re-sale, but I can comfortably count all of them on my fingers.

I almost never keep TF's sealed in their boxes. I do keep the boxes for storage when I'm not displaying them, though.

I buy only what I like for displaying and not "investment" or re-selling, so there's no point in keeping them sealed.

If it's something I dont already have, I'm opening it up.

All of my Masterpeices, my limited edtion figures, my Japanes figures, my G1 reisue... I open them all. Then I may buy the mold again to keep it mint, but only if it's cheap. No way I'm going to buy a second 2010 Creator Primus or even a second Masterpeice just to keep it sealed. Not at these prices.

I used to keep most of my boxes, but once agan, one get out of room. So I trashed half of them, keeping the boxes of Masterpeices and Japanese figures. Some people do buy these empty boxes so I may as well sell them off Ebay.

Eh, like someone here said before: If your intention is to get rich, collect money, not toys. I collect TF cause I actually want to play with it and display it along with others, on a shelf, out of box.

So yes, everything I own is out of box. I do keep the cards though of delxues. Not sure why, since I never plan to sell these. Oh well.

The only ones I keep MISB are HFTD Elita-1. I kinda don't feel like opening her, got her cause it was dirt cheap. And PRID Bumblebee. It was a prize from hasbro, I have no plans on taking it out.

MP Rodimus got back in his box, since his arm broke. I might just glue it back and sacrifice transformation, if I get more MPs.

I never keep them in boxes. But i have a few boxes that i have kept to make moving easier. A transformer is meant to have 2 modes. If you keep it in the box you only have half a transformer. You cant play with it, you cant transform it, you cant pose it, the boxes take up a lot more space than the actual toy inside of it. If u buy a transformer in box and its in vehicle mode then just buy a car, jet or truck that looks like it, the joints and gimmicks it was given get wasted. And if its robot mode then buy a robot.

For G1,Encore and MP ..........two words........rubber rot. 'nuff said!

Sorry double post. Phones fault