Originally Posted by Grogs
Well, it's pretty clear to me why Pimsleur uses собираться so much. They only introduce ~8-12 new word per lesson. And by 'words', I mean either truly new words or simply different conjugations/cases of old ones. Once they've taught the various conjugations of собираться, all they have to do is teach the infinitive. Then, you can also use the same infinitive in sentences using хотеть, должен, надо, etc. So they can get quite a bit of 'mileage' out of a single verb using this technique. It seems like a good form to know for a Russian novice as well. For example, if I've forgotten how to conjugate съесть, I can still say "Я собираюсь съесть через полчаса" and get my point across, nuances of meaning notwithstanding.