Do I baby them, absolutely! Do I use them, of course and they are well taken care of. Never bought a gun I wouldn't use. No safe queens at my house, but no abused ones either. Half the fun is using them and then taking care of them.
I keep my nice guns looking nice but I do shoot them. Sort of depends on what and where I'm hunting on what I decide to take.
Heck, I take care of my synthetic guns but I use them harder than my wood stocked counterparts. Things last longer and have better resale when they are taken care of.
'Babying' is such a relative term. I shoot once a week (usually 2 guns) and field strip and clean the guns within a day or two every time. Now, detail strip cleaning is another matter, that I very seldom do; just don't have the patience for it, so from that standpoint, I'd have to say no, I don't baby 'em. ymmv
After serving in the 82nd Airborne and doing fifteen years in the service...No. I take them out in the rain, the snow, the sand and surf. They get thrown in with other guns in the trunk.
I DO baby the bores and internals, cleaning is one of the fun things I do with them (besides shooting, 'natch.)
I baby my guns. I may take them out into rough conditions and beat them up a bit, but when I'm through I give them the equivalent of a bubble bath. And once a month I do the same whether I've shot them or not.
Mine are almost all ex service rifles, and as such are treated with the respect a seasoned veteran deserves. I do however shoot every one of them, except this one..... unfired from the factory proof Yes, it gets very babied!
While I do have a couple of family antique pieces that have infinite sentimental value but very little real street value, the rest of them are just tools like you say.
Sure, I don't purposely abuse them them. Sure, I clean them properly and take care of them. But I use them as designed, and I expect them to do their job.
I have a hard hat hanging in my office with a big gash in the side that was my "favorite" hard hat for 20 years. Until one day it did its job. My head doesn't have a gash in the side. I was upset about losing my favorite hard hat for about 15 minutes, but I figured out that it's a tool.
Tools have a job. Treasures have a place as well, but it's a different place.
I had a springfield armory m14 once that I was afraid to scratch. I didn't keep it very long. If I have to worry about putting a scratch on my gun I don't need it.