Mmmm that's true, I don't. I tend to close GMail tabs once I'm done with them because I also noticed they tend to leak and are poorly optimized for non-Chrome browsers.
I run a similar number of tabs in Pale Moon (browser) with slightly better performance. But most of this is because I make a choice not to use shitty website that are written in javascript instead of html.
I have started to use HTML version of GMail. Really refreshing to have a snappy interface again. Manual Ctrl+R to refresh though. That tab is using 1.4MB of RAM.