Personally, I use RSS in Google Reader as a living bookmark system. I have about 500 subscriptions and don't pay any attention to the unread count. A couple times a week when I'm in the mood to check out stuff in a certain subject area, I'll go on google reader and click through things in that folder. For instance, if I'm looking for inspiration, I'll click through my "art and design" folder that has 50 to 100 feeds in it. Other times some business event will be in the news, and I'll go into my folder of business feeds.
Apparently using RSS in this way is somehow different than how most people use it. People complain about feeling guilty or somehow stressed out by unread counts. People complain about a psychological pressure to keep up with and read everything in a feed or collection of feeds.
However, I'm left wondering whether this is an issue with how the tools are designed, or perhaps with how RSS is framed. Perhaps we need to develop tools that deemphasize unread counts and instead further emphasize browsing or discontinuous digestion of the content streams.