In general, yes I like opening them, and surprise factor that's with it. You have a certain degree of expectation that goes with it, but it's still enough surprise I think. I don't know exactly what I'm going to get, but I know which cards I could expect, since it's limited to a certain cardset.
I've tried a lot of different games and as such opened a lot of packs. I never really bought packs just to make a profit, I open packs because I wanted the cards for said game. Though, usually if I want cards I'll buy singles, since that's often cheaper than buying a few packs and hoping on the right cards. And I kinda have a habit in making "cheap" cards work fine in terms of playing said games, so I don't have that urge to have ultra-uber-super-mythic-3d-holo-foil-strawberryscented cards.
I still actively play Magic: The gathering (albeit online and not with physical packs of cards). Much like other card games it offers tournament formats that include opening packs of cards and the excitement of opening the packs and having "random" cards and making decks from those, surely is one of the factors that makes such tournaments a bit of fun (even if though I prefer just bringing my own deck with cards I know).
It's funny how you mention the notion of expensive cards and "gambling" on such a pull. I've seen many people enter certain Magic tournaments (mostly casual, no world championships) and resort to rare picking, by trying to accumulate as many rare cards, since they're mostly worth more than any others in the packs. Especially in a format like "drafting", where you open your first pack, take a card you want out, and give your pile to the one on your right... you'll get the pile of 14 (15 minus the card the person on your left took), take one and pass your pile of 13, and so on. Do this for 3 packs of cards and you're left with 45 cards to make a deck with. But since every card has at least 1 rare card, and sometimes people don't want this rare card (since it doesn't suit their playstyle and they would prefer cards with more utility for their deck they have to build for example), you can sometimes hoard up on those (and end up in a crappy deck, since you lack said utility cards). I noticed that you can easily end up with between 4 to 6 rares quite often out of 3 packs. But obviously, the really valueable cards aren't being passed around obviously. No one is going to pass up a 100 dollar card.
I rarely buy booster packs nowadays. Well, no physical ones. It's mainly because I rarely play paper card games at the moment. The last time I bought a physical pack of cards (Magic: the gathering), was in november or so, just because I felt bad for leaving empty handed at a local comicbook store. I remember buying a few packs of Pokemon in August last year (or so), but that was only because they were half price. So if I see a nice deal on a cardgame I actually own cards for and play, I might get some packs, but paying full price on a full box of packs won't happen.
Talking full price. I once did this. Bought a full box (36 packs) of Magic cards with a friend. We shared expenses, so he'd get 18 packs, I got 18. In the end we ended argueing because he thought I pulled a better lot (and I even made him take out 2 packs and pass me the closed pack he didn't want of those 2). Obviously not going to do that again with this friend of mine.
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