There's several things that drew me away from Benchmade and towards Spyderco.
There's a variety of "must own" knives in Spyderco's line up, not for collecting purposes, but for function. They have many ergonomic champions.
For me it's the steel... I wanted more than what S30V and S35VN can deliver and at work I need more. M390/20cv isn't enough on some days where I'm cutting volumes of dirty cardboard.
This was the tipping point for me with Spyderco and what caused me to buy an embarrassing amount of Spyderco knives over the last 6 or months.
The availability of true high-end steel types on Spyderco's various models for me becomes a force multiplier in the value proposition.
I've never called myself a collector of anything but I can see how Spyderco can make a collector out of someone real quick.