I readily admit that I'm not sure where I am going with this exactly, so bear with me.
Much of what I am going to say will probably prompt a "duh!" from many of you but sometimes I just have to see things for myself. I think this might be a little bit of a spin-off from the thread about abandoning set building over on the pre-war board...maybe that got me to thinking about this. And since this isn't another PSA/SGC thread, that automatically makes it an ok thread! We have had some set building threads here in postwar land (and I have loved every single one of them). For years with sets I have worked on, I have largely rejected the idea of buying partials, lots, etc. in favor of agonizing and choosing each and every single card one at a time. For me at least, this led to spending more and bogging down and not finishing in many cases. I recently bought a partial 242/250 1954 Topps baseball set that has exmt cards and my Aaron is an SGC 3. The set has a lot of ex cards, and overall it is a pretty nice vgex set that I am proud to own. I actually need Lasorda and Hodges to finish. Of the 242 cards, there were about 20 that just didn't make the cut for a variety of condition issues that I just couldn't live with. They will get upgraded. However, there were about 25 others that, at the time, I was on the fence about whether or not I wanted to keep to include in my particular set. These cards had some very mild almost imperceptible wrinkle that could only be seen when held in light at a certain angle, less than perfect centering, etc.---stuff that OCD had a little struggle with at the time. As individuals on a site like the Battersbox, I probably wouldn't have purchased. OCD is an ugly thing!
I keep all of the raw cards in my sets in penny sleeves and Cardsaver Is in two row corrugated white cardboard boxes. Tonight I got the set out and looked through it, and it was glorious! Those borderline cards had just melted into the fabric of the set, and in many cases, I couldn't even remember or pick out which ones they were. The little pesky issues didn't matter any more.
My lesson: relax a little! I don't see it as lowering my standards. I see it as liberating, and I will always love this set for that reason. I bought the partial and culled out what I didn't want and compromised on a few borderline commons that I can live with and saved quite a bit of money. I know many of you guys have done this forever and are probably saying "duh," but this was a real eye opener for me.
Long live the set builders!