Yup. Keep an archive AND a plugins folder. Use the former to add stuff to the latter or take away from it. Organise your stuff well. Make it so that you can find anything you see in game within minutes in your plugins folder.
Given today's abundance of plugins, I strongly recommend a "pull" approach as opposed to a "push" system, i.e. no download spree, but instead carefully measured downloads of stuff you feel you need to add when you play the game and something is lacking,
