Looks great Joe, and I'll be following this thread with note pad and pen in hand ;-)
By the way, I did my Honor's Thesis over Native American Artifact collectors, and one of the things I looked at is what causes them to collect, or more accurately what creates the Affinity for collecting a particular group of items. I'm seeing similar processes occurring with modelers. Basically, it has to do with symbolism and what I dubbed "emotive symbolism," which breaks down into a couple of subgroups. The key component with point hunters, that I'm seeing with modelers, is "nostalgic symbolism" Usually, there is something about the past that draws the collector initially towards the hobby. Then, as they begin to become proficient in the hobby, this symbolic interaction (not the theory for any other sociology nerds, but part of the theory nonetheless) creates strong emotional responses and ties to that which they are collecting.
In my research, I found this to be the case in several collecting hobbies, from those who collect Pez dispensers to old celluloid films. With out sitting down and talking to you I can't say for sure, but there is probably something('s) OR someone('s) that draws you towards the Mustang more than any other bird. It might be something as simple as going to an air show with your dad and that's one each of you connected with, or even more simply a story about a certain pilot.
Believe it or not, this concept is extremely powerful. Some people refer to becoming addicted or hooked to this or that hobby, and are willing to break the law in order to participate in it. There's a separate concept called Terror Management that ties into all this, which occurs at the end of one's collecting career. If a long term collector has a good experience with ending the collection process and knows that their collection is going to a good place, they generally will end it in peace. Conversely, if something bad happens at the end... say a fire, or their collection gets stolen, or they sell it off and they find out they got ripped off, then a deep depression can actually result. I've actually seen cases of both.
Probably way more than you wanted to know, but your mentioning of your proclivity towards the P-51 reminded me of how similar the to fields are in certain areas... Raymond