I am not going to delve through 8 pages of responses but if I know my counterparts I am sure most said that there is no right or wrong but it depends on the school. The student needs to take the most rigorous courseload available to them. In some public schools, the only way a student can get a rigorous class is to take an AP so their schedule is full of them. This is how they show rigor.
At some of the more sought after independents and privates, the courses are so rigorous that they do not offer a lot of AP classes. Some have eliminated them altogether (as my D’s high school is well on the way to doing). My D only took 3 AP classes - APUSH junior year and AP Stats and AP Latin senior year. She took AP Stats because she was avoiding Calculus (she’s a freshman Literature major) and AP Latin because that was her only option at the level of Latin she had reached so she had no choice. She did not even bother to send her scores to Yale because by the time she took the tests in her senior year, she had been accepted to Yale and the scores meant nothing.
Also, AP classes are not taught the same - and the rigor of the actual AP class mirrors the overall quality of the school and its teachers in some ways. There are kids that will get an A in their AP class but get a 2 or 3 on the exam. Other schools, kids will get B’s in the class but regularly post 5s.