I'm in this boat as well. From my perspective, I'd only bother keeping a tab open for a long period of time if it meets the following criteria:
1) It's something I'd actually want to go and view later (most stuff fails this criteria)
2) It's not something I can easily find again
3) It's something that I only anticipate going back to a couple of times, and thus isn't worth making into a bookmark
And over all my years browsing the web, almost nothing satisfies all that criteria. I'm pretty aggressive with closing tabs, and I almost never regret closing a tab.
1) It's something I'd actually want to go and view later (most stuff fails this criteria)
2) It's not something I can easily find again
3) It's something that I only anticipate going back to a couple of times, and thus isn't worth making into a bookmark
And over all my years browsing the web, almost nothing satisfies all that criteria. I'm pretty aggressive with closing tabs, and I almost never regret closing a tab.