What's Behind That Door?

It is, of course, well established that roleplaying games as we know them today grew out of the hobby of miniatures wargaming. I suspect that's why 25mm miniature figures continued to be made and sold for use with RPGs, even though, in my personal experience, very few people had much use for them at the table. That was certainly the case for me. Despite this, lots of games continued to recommend the use of miniature figures as an aid to play, including some rather unexpected ones, like Call of Cthulhu. 

Call of Cthulhu quickly became one of my favorite roleplaying games and I acquired all of the support products for it that I could both find and afford – like the miniatures sold by Grenadier Models. After losing the AD&D license in 1982, Grenadier tried to maintain its presence in the RPG world by picking up licenses to produce figures for other popular roleplaying games, like Traveller and Call of Cthulhu. They also tried their hand at publishing adventures for both games, with very mixed results.

I owned the two boxed sets of Call of Cthulhu miniatures, the first of which was dedicated to adventurers (though the box says "adventures," which I assume was an error). Here's the cover, showing Indiana Jones, Al Capone, and Professor Plum preparing to burst into the room behind a closed door.

The second boxed set depicts a night gaunt, a deep one, and a ghoul, who lie in wait behind the very same door the adventurers are about to open. Taken together, they form a fun little diptych that, to my shame, I don't think I even recognized until several years after I'd bought them.

Because I rarely painted or used these miniatures, I'm not completely sure why I bought them. I suppose it's because I thought I was supposed to do so. The rulebooks recommended their use, companies sold them, and nearly everyone I knew had at least a handful of minis they'd carry around in their dice bag, even though, like me, they almost never did anything with them. Owning miniatures was simply part of the culture of the hobby at the time. Like dice, they were part of the "uniform." You had to have them, if you wanted to be part of the "team." I don't think that's as common a feeling anymore, though I still see plenty of miniatures for sale in game stores. 
What are your experiences with miniatures? Do you own many and, more importantly, do you use them? I'd be very curious to know.