Exactly. I have only about 500 contacts in my phone, but that accumulated from just one year of similar type of work. And I have been trying to leave some numbers out if I feel fairly certain they wont be of use.
And yes they sure come in handy - you just dont know where and when but you gotta have them ready.
Nokia is missing a huge advantage in not properly supporting business type of users. Not ony should these phones have been built to handle large contact databases, but also Nokia should support synchronisation of Outlook categories and syncing with MS OneNote, both of which are not only absent but seem unlikely to happen on S60.
Its a crying shame considering we are talking about Nokia here - company who made the legendary 6310, the ultimate business phone of its time.