I don't exactly remember why I decided I needed mechanical keyboards, but it happened when I built my first PC five years ago. I'd been perfectly happy with my eMachines rubber dome keyboard, but I guess I just wanted more stuff to buy for my computer. I do specifically remember coming across the Coolermaster QuickFire TK and thinking the layout looked really cool. I couldn't decide between MX blues and MX reds, so I got the TK for home and a full size Rosewill with blues for work.
I was satisfied with those for a few years. Again, I don't remember exactly what spurred this notion, but I decided to look for something else, and I came across the IBM model M. I decided to get some new keycaps and o-rings instead since the stock keycaps were getting shiny and sticky (despite washing), and the length of travel and bottom out of the MX blues had bothered me for some reason. That held me off for another eight or nine months, but I thought about the Model M again - not sure why - and decided to buy one. For some reason, the Model M is what made me really get into mech keyboards in earnest. It caused me to enter the Ellipse F77 GB and then other GBs later on.
I don't know what would make me quit mechs entirely, but I am not a fan of how expensive a lot of the stuff is. CNC metal chassis I understand being expensive, but keycaps are just ridiculous. Lately, I'm finding that there's really no holy grail of keyboards; everything is slightly disappointing because none of the new fancy stuff has stood the test of time. The whole box switch debacle really put a damper on things for me since Box Navies were the closet to holy grail that I'd found. The aftermarket on things, even vintage things now, is also ridiculously expensive, so I don't even bother.
I only have two customs. The rest are just stock or modified stock. Lots of cool customs I'd like to have, but I can't drop $300-600 every couple of months. I've mainly just bought keycaps and switches I won't use.