The PSA Registry has made heroes of guys like Rance Mulliniks, Roy Howell, Larry Hisle, etc, etc.
I get a few laughs out of folks paying $$$ for "PSA Gem 10 Pop 1(2,3,etc)" of players I grew up knowing as fillers or commons.
I'll stick with my gameplan of collecting. Which doesn't included artificially inflating prices of cards to be #1 on a manufactured list...