Yes and no. The prototypes are recognisable, but they suggest three distinct classes, one better than the other. I would argue that reality is more complicated.
First, the classes are not distinct. Collectors can be several stages at the same time or they can move from one to the other. Some examples from personal experience: a year ago, I knew nothing about telephone tokens and I did research on Central Asian coins, I collected euro coins from circulation, but my want list wasn't up to date and I was re-organising my British bus/tram tokens. Now, I have done a large number of pages on WoT and a presentation on telephone tokens and I am still doing research on Central Asian coins, my euro coin collection looks less sloppy and the want list has improved somewhat after a quite successful visit to a Brussels coin shop and the bus/tram token collection has lost attention for lack of new stuff. Then and now, lack of new stuff also hampered my well-researched collection of Dutch coins and my under-researched French coins. I am currently starting to research Dutch gas distribution tokens. In other words, my collecting was in all three categories all the time.
Second and more important, coin collecting is voluntary and unpaid. It is not a job, but a way to spend your own time in your own way. That means that you can approach your hobby any way you want. If, like me, you don't want to put stuff on paper, but do like to build up something significant in a random way and over a period of time, that's just as good for you as writing a standard reference book or sloppy collecting. Don't get me wrong, the standard reference book is of great value to other collectors and a real contribution to collecting, knowledge and perhaps research or even a contribution to world peace, but if a sloppy collection makes the collector happy, so be it. Also, I am personally convinced that the more you know about the coin, the more you appreciate it, but I am not asking anyone to agree with me.
I short, people who collect for the chase, but wouldn't know what to do when the chase is over are just as much collector as people who can do without the coin as long as they have a high-res illustration.
Peter