Personally, in regards to this, mine are definitely play dolls. I've had three of my dolls since I was a child, and have been collecting on and off for over 10 years.

I would NEVER keep a dolls' hair in the style it came in, as I find that to simply be a mentality of keeping them good to be "worth" something. I don't buy them to sell in the future, and I want them to be played with, and pretty when they are displayed. To me, they're not pretty when they look the same all the time. And with the long, gorgeous hair some of these dolls have, it seems like such a waste to keep their hair in braids and ponytails ALL the time.

I have a hair obsession (my own is quite long, for the same reason), and I love playing with dollie hair. I took Jess' hair out of the braids about 5 min after I took her out of the box. Then again, I'm quite good with hair, and can normally get the styles back to how they were when the doll arrived, so I don't think of that as an issue for me. My dolls' hair are hardly ever styled as they were when they arrived, except for Nellie, because there's very little one can do with such short hair.

Generally my dolls stand on a "shelf", and smile out at people entering my room. However, I definitely do not see them as collector, or display, dolls.