Why does anyone need multiples of anything? I can’t speak to what bass players think or do. 
Do you follow little Ellen Alaverdyan on YouTube (Ellen Plays Bass) or Facebook? She’s 11 or 12 years old and And already has a large bass collection.
She’s worth following even if you’re not a bassist, just for the pure joy she brings to her playing.
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Not everyone will want or need multiple guitars.
Some pro’s are known for using the same guitar for decades.
But even then you cant just take 1 guitar out on tour.
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Nandi Bushell, on drums, is also very much worth following.
Just wow.
That’s the nicest thing anyone has said about me all day!
Thank you. 
for the vast majority of us in here, no need at all. most of us never take the guitar out of the house. if you’re on the road making money with your guitars i understand. everyone else is just an expensive toy collector
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Let me explain:
Q: How many guitars should a normal person have?
A: About five.
Q: Umm, that sounds more like a guitar enthausiast to me.
A: No, a guitar enthausiast has about fifteen.
Q: That sounds more like someone who is obsessed with guitars.
A: Nope. People obsessed with guitars can have hundreds.
Q: Hundreds? Yike! That sounds like a psycho!
A: No. Psychos seldom own guitars, or at most tend to have just one or two.
Q: Ah, now that sounds like a normal person.
A: No no. A normal person has about five. We already covered that.
(like most things on the internet, stolen from somewhere else 
)
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Having had some experience with the rarefied violin world I am constantly amazed at how incredibly cheap guitars are in comparison.
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There are few guitars worth millions!
I’ve got a Tele, and a Les Paul. What more could you want? 
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Strat? 335? Acoustic?
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How many guitars do you need? I thought the correct answer was always “Just one more” 
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For the same reason there are many varieties of wine and whiskey.
Don’t ask why, ask why not.
Neck radius and fret height are things that become preferences, and I suspect due to familiarity.
I have 4 guitars. Never thought I’d get there as fast as I did though. Each is different in significant ways:
- PRS Tremonti SE HH: extremely pretty clean sound that I often use for acoustic music even though this model was targeted at hard/metal rock. Heavy weight and solid neck feel. Capable of most any style I want to attempt with reasonably good duplication of sound. Has tremolo bar.
- Ibanez SEW HSS strat style: Thinnest body and neck by a lot. body vibrates into my own when I play. I cannot duplicate the subtleties of the sound with anything else I have. Very easy to move fretting hand on this one. Longest scale length I have.
- Epiphone SG HH split coil: bright sound and shortest scale length I have allowing me to reach some chords I cannot otherwise reach. Actually hard to play compared to others. Duplicates some tones (AC/DC) better than anything else I have.
- strandberg Boden NX6 HH split coil: extremely light; neck shape is very different and the most comfortable; pickup switch options are very different from each other. I can duplicate HB and double single coil sounds with this easily. It is very easy to play without my body in unfavorable positions. Very pretty clean sound that can duplicate acoustic well enough. The resonance of the chambered body gives it a warm depth that no other guitar in my collection has. Has tremolo bar.
each of these has a place in my play goals. I have found that I can duplicate SOME of the sound of other guitars but not completely and not all that accurately. A quick look at the recorded waveform shows the differences quickly to explain why they have such a different tone.
I cannot replicate sounds between guitars. I CAN get in the ballpark well enough to support your argument of a single guitar in many cases. I have not found a good way to duplicate single coils with humbuckers. They just don’t respond the same.
I don’t have a single-coil in the neck option in my collection. Splits are not really the same as a true single coil. Maybe a tele or SSS strat is in my future. at that point I suspect I have enough coverage to not need anything other than something unusual or from basic desire and can narrow down my wants to a specific goal.
Using the different options gives you an experience that you cannot get from reading or listening. The different feels of scale length, the different sounds of the pickups, the change in string tension. All of this needs to be experienced to understand. This is the best use of multiple guitars as a new-ish player
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Thanks @sequences - I hadn’t really thought about factors like scale length and neck radius when I asked the question. I can see now that “feel” is an important factor.
Can I ask you a corollary question? It seems like you can get fancy amps now with thousands of settings that can emulate almost anything. Plus an endless supply of different pedals. Can’t you set them to give you a “humbucker sound” or a “single coil sound”.
I’m still not getting the whole pickup thing, but I guess my ears aren’t experienced enough yet to appreciate the differences.
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No - the HB has two poles and two coils, both in different places along the string. The single coil is in one place. Now consider the string vibration. Since the pickup point is not in the same place on both the HB coils, they combine to a different sound than the single coil will. There are additional things involved electrically, but this is the easiest mechanical thing to visualize (at least I think so).
Regarding the multiple amp models, EQ, and the like… Yeah, you can get a single extended ringing that is in the ballpark - pretty close in many cases, but not the same, and really not the same on pick attack. It takes experience to identify sound differences, not any different than anything we experience in life, really. When I started, I couldn’t tell you an Orange from a Fender from a Marshall. After fiddling with the models and playing enough notes/chords thru those models, I probably can now. It just takes time with the sound and some link to know how to connect it, like knowing it was made with “whatever” amp or pedal, etc.
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OK, thanks for the detailed replies. 
Obviously I will need to get more guitars so I can learn to appreciate all the differences in feel and sound. 
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I’ve got a tele, strat, Les Paul and 335. IMHO the sonic differences to an audience, particularly in a live setting are minimal. However they do sound (and feel) very different to me - and that changes the way I play each of them. For me, that’s the big difference, there are licks, chords, styles, even songs that I’ll play on one that I won’t play on others because that’s how the guitar makes me feel.
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I think it makes much more difference when you are recording than live. Esp if you are layering guitars.
But we are creating sound. How that sound sounds to us is important.
To me, this is like Taylor Swift making costume changes during a concert. 
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