Wackys predate GPK by 18 years, so we do have some older fans who have been at this for 40 years or more. I don't know whether GPK fans had forums and pursued variations, etc. during the years between the originals and the ANS releases, but Wacky collectors certainly did. And, we had reissues, 1985, 1991 and album stickers to buy in between.
I'm something of a crossover collector in that I have GPK 1-15 with all the variations. But I didn't really think about them again until I started getting the first few GPK ANS sets. When the insert levels got to be so expensive in ANS, I gave up on GPK and spent that money on Wacky chase cards instead. "Dedicated" is definitely the right word to describe this Wacky collector!