>What advantages do you see to keeping a large number of tabs open at a time? Do you find that you return to them?

I edited my comment to expand a little on that. Adding to it, tabs for me are a crude thinking tool. I usually open links as new tabs so I can see how my search for information has branched out. The practice is unwieldy and results in my browser being the highest consumer of system resources, but at least I can see how I came to research a particular thing. It's more insightful than browser history, which only tells a linear story. Browsers these days will also try to direct you to open tabs if you type something similar in a search bar, which can be interesting for connecting previous inquiries with new ones.

I should dive into the Next browser. Apparently it has a tree-based history, which might be an efficient solution for my needs: https://nyxt.atlas.engineer/