I boot my machine maybe once or twice a month. All other times, it wakes up from sleep or hibernate (which this drive won't help, of course). Most people, especially mac users, are the same way. Rebooting died with the 90s.
As for starting apps, they start when I log in, and most initialization is CPU-bound, not IO-bound. If you do it differently than this, a software or workflow fix seems like a better idea than a very expensive drive.
True enough... but you're underestimating the subjective performance increase. It's astounding (not with this drive, but with a full SSD)
Since switching my mac to a decently quick SSD and doing a few other tweaks to go along with it - I actually shut it down for the night or when I know I won't be using it for a while - because it shuts down in less than 2 seconds and boots to fully-usable in 20 seconds - and apps still start instantly, suddenly rebooting is no longer a thing to work around or avoid. I don't worry about keeping anything running to speed things up, because everything is just that fast.
Plus I can just yank it off the table without waiting for drive spindown if I have to run off to another meeting.
As for starting apps, they start when I log in, and most initialization is CPU-bound, not IO-bound. If you do it differently than this, a software or workflow fix seems like a better idea than a very expensive drive.