ok - keep in mind that this is my "Vacation Studio"
there is a shit load more of my gear in a storage unit in Connecticut - including more analogs, my Rhodes, racks of comps and other synth/misc all my guitar stuff blah blah blah...
I am a collector of shit like this - thats how I justify having so much gear. Its really all I spend my money on - I have no clothing, no food, no girlfriend, etc...
I look at this gear like a usable investment - it pays to save up for the nice gear, because it does not lose value like for example something made by Korg or Roland thats made in mass quantities. I invest in gear, trade and sell it for other gear, and consider my collection to be both liquid, and a preparation for the future when I plan to open a commercial electronic music studio.
In those trunks next to my wurlitzer in my photos are tons of mics, cables, and random thingies. The mics are a serious investment - I have some nice pieces in there - and while they do not get used that often at the moment - they get me work when I do live sound engineering and recording gigs.
So, I do not know if that makes me a pro or whatever - all I know is that sometimes I make money with the gear, sometimes I spend money on the gear. I try and build as much stuff as I can in order to save money and get "the sound" to minimize spending. I have been collecting instruments my entire life - so do not get discouraged about having a small setup! Having this much shit is a burden! However, when I am in a space that affords room to have it all set up in one space its a beautiful amazing thing! You can go into any corner and make music - and have it all routed into one patchbay that can run the signal through any compressor and then into the computer for recording. However, like I said, most of that shit is in storage at the moment - I consider this to be a temporary situation :-D
The whole concept of music professional is fluid. Many of the professional musicians I know have second jobs to supplement their incomes. EM composers, especially, make little money from their music. The people who are making a decent wage are playing in Top 40 bands, country bands, and the like, or are lucky DJs who play music that average club people enjoy.
So about the pictures of piles of gear you see on the Web, I speculate that the majority of it was purchased by income not directly associated with music. There is an old joke which summarizes this:
Q: How do you make a million dollars in music? A: Start with two million.