All 'pro' means you are making at least 1/2 of your income from photography. There are some pros that have a bunch of nice gear, but there are a lot of other pros who either use gear provided by their employer, or are making do with a few carefully selected pieces. Often the people with the best gear that they own are rich (or continually in debt) amateurs, some of whom believe that if they own nice gear that their pictures will improve. In general, better gear gets you more opportunities to take pictures you might not be able to capture otherwise, but you still need to take compelling photos. While I can get caught up in having to own the next new shiny as others, most of the new stuff is just refinements to what I already own.