A few thousand?!!
That's a lot.
I don't have more than a few 100 on some people and that's by playing a few months a few times per week.
Do you play so much with the same people, or is did you just build it up over years playing every day?
Depends what games you play, and what time. But when i used to play getting a few thousand only took a few days or a week at most depending on how many games i would load with the same player.
The thing is i'd be playing 12-15 at once with the same players on most of the tables, so 1-2k hands really isn't that much when you think about it.
But the point is, the more hands you have on players the more those intricate stats will be to you to give you a good picture of his overall ranges from certain positions. Like if a player reads from CO-15 pfr Btn-25 pfr and SB- 80pfr i would attack him almost everytime he raised my BB just because i knew his range was way to weak to continue to any pressure. but that's only if i had at least 1k hands or more on him to make sure. if i only had a few hundred i would be less inclined to make moves on him based on his stats.
You have to be pretty careful on which stats to put in and how to inperpret them though, i spent hours upon hours adjusting and refining my HUD setup, it takes time to get it right for you, but once you do it's so much easier in game.