I don't think I go into thousands, but easily accumulate a few 100 tabs. The way I work, I rarely have a task truly done in one go. Besides various side projects, I work on multiple websites for multiple clients and constantly need to put one on hold and wait for feedback, so I go work on another one. If I expect feedback withing a ~2 day period, it really doesn't make sense for me to close the related tabs. Not only does it save time when picking up the task again, but helps me reconstruct my train of thought without having to take notes.
The way I think of it is kind of like swap memory. Instead of wasting effort saving to disk and verifying the saved data (taking notes), I chuck the data somewhere it isn't in the way (a new virtual desktop) so I can pick it up later. In fact, this is exactly what happens with the tabs at the system level. Since I'm constantly running out of ram and have a stupid amount of swap space set up, my OS gladly swaps the relevant browser processes and unswap the relevant set.
The way I think of it is kind of like swap memory. Instead of wasting effort saving to disk and verifying the saved data (taking notes), I chuck the data somewhere it isn't in the way (a new virtual desktop) so I can pick it up later. In fact, this is exactly what happens with the tabs at the system level. Since I'm constantly running out of ram and have a stupid amount of swap space set up, my OS gladly swaps the relevant browser processes and unswap the relevant set.