I said 10-12 tabs consistently - and by that I mean app tabs that remain open. The rest should be opened for research as needed AND THEN CLOSED WHEN FINISHED. For everything else that you need to consistently check updates on, you need to find a way to turn it into an RSS feed or Twitter feed or whatever that feeds into an existing tab for an app you already have open (e.g. Google Reader or your social media aggregator of choice).
This is not "my" way - this is the way of the human brain. You can't do that many things at once and you can't focus on that many things at once. You would be overwhelmed by 500 tabs of information...that's why most of us have 1 site where all our information aggregates and 1 email address where the rest forward and 1 cell phone rather than 5-6, etc. I'm saying that people that do this type of EXTREME tab browsing are inherently disorganized and lack focus and attention to anything they do.
Yeah, downvote it to hell, I really don't mind. If you do this on a regular basis though, I'd love to hear from you and how you feel about whether you are an organized individual and one who adequately focuses on the things that are important to you.