Do babies really need this much stuff?

I decided to start a baby registry today on Amazon, mostly so I can have a place to save all the recommendations I read about on blogs and babycenter. I figure I can go ahead and put everything down as it pops into my head, and then do some sorting later to figure out what we really need/ want. And then my brain exploded. There is SO MUCH STUFF out there for babies, and different people recommend different things/ brands because (shocker) every baby is different.

For example- I really want to try cloth diapering. But there are a million different options out there- BumGenius, fuzzibunz, thristies, etc. Pre-folds, pockets, all in ones. One size and adjustable. And I'm not even sure some of those aren't the same thing. For every "these are the best ever" there's a "this didn't work for my baby, but these other ones are amazing".

There's a place that does a cloth diaper trial package that I think sounds like a good idea to figure out what MY kid wants/ needs, but that means I wouldn't be able to register for any cloth diaper stuff. There's also a local store in my town that sells cloth diapers that I've thought about checking out just to try to get a better understanding, then maybe register for a few of my top favorites and hope one of them takes. I wish I just KNEW.

Imagine this much confusion about nearly every large purchase for baby (crib, stroller, carseat, breast pump, monitor system, baby carrier) and you'll get an idea of why my brain exploded.