Personally, I don't know of any of these people that love having sixteen different versions of the same card to chase down.
Serious player collectors are bound by the standard principles of doing such a collection -- namely, completion. We chart out statistics, wantlists and havelists, and yes, we enjoy the chase. But player collectors want what they're chasing to have a degree of uniqueness, specialness, or personal value. Some parallel sets do this -- and no one is going to complain about a set that only has 1 or 2 parallels anyway. Sadly, the majority of parallel sets are very simple color changes that offer little of interest. Virtually every player collector I've ever met is still mad at Pacific for all the foil color variations with extraordinarily low print runs. Virtually everybody thinks Artifacts has been a monumental parallel overkill -- to the point that the parallel versions of various cards are both difficult to distinguish and offering almost nothing in the way of additional value.
If there's sixteen different versions of the same card, the majority of player collectors are going to add all sixteen versions to their wantlists -- that's just the way player collecting is done. It's a statement to the style of collecting hobby, and not an endorsement of a manufacturer's decision.
