Having many ships and stations doesn't mean that you have to spend a lot of time in the game. Most of the time nowadays I log in to just check the corp board and forum. That said, I spend more time responding to forum posts and corp boards than actually playing the game. LOL
But it does give you more opportunity to be busy in the game. When you start out with just one ship, travelling to another star or getting anything done is very slow. You have lots of reasons to be afk, unless you buy QP. But later on... It's a different experience. Multiple ships allow you to explore all hours of the day, if desired. You can mine and do missions too. And then there's the issue of managing all your modules and upgrading everything, wherever it may be. As you add ships and stations and module slots and modules to the planets, it certainly does give you more things to potentially do, if that's what you desire.
Can't make a reply if you edit your post so many times. Haha