Simlasa; it seems to me that the problem isn't "too many NPCs", in fact the problem is everything else you've detailed below.

I'm personally a big fan of the "cast of thousands" school of GMing; in my campaigns I try very hard to have all kinds of NPCs, tons of them, because if it is done right it is an excellent emulation tool.  A western game is often the sort that positively requires such a thing.

The problem as I see it is that this concept requires a very particular mix of NPCs. Its ok to have a few that are far in advance of the PCs, though these should usually be set up in such a way that they are either peripheral or that their chance to rob the limelight from the PCs is minimized.  The majority of the NPCs, however, should be people at or below the PCs' level.

Its ok, as I noted, to have very powerful NPCs, but you shouldn't give them script immunity.  In western games I've run, for example, I've used both Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.  Because I tend to run "legendary" style western games, my version of Earp literally could not be hit by a bullet, and my version of Holliday literally couldn't miss when he shot at someone (though how well he hit could vary).  This did a good job of emulating the kick-ass nature of these characters.  It didn't mean, however, that you couldn't fuck them over six ways from sunday if you thought it through.

The problem you note about "rescuing someone" being the constant theme of the adventures strikes me as a profound lack of creativity on the GM's part. Nothing much there to do with the sheer number of NPCs.

The absolute core of your problems seems to be your points numbers 4 and 5.  The fact that the NPCs are generally oriented to gravitate around only one PC, and that one being the GM's Wife to boot, is a very serious problem.  Even worse than that, however, is the fact that the GM has tons of NPCs, but doesn't actually successfully run them.  There's no point in having a cast of thousands if they all look, act and sound the same.  

So yeah, the problem there is with bad GMing in all these other respects, and not with the core concept of an NPC-heavy game.  My own experience tells me that this concept is not only sound, but if pulled off properly marks a huge difference between a mediocre campaign and a fantastic one.  

RPGpundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;451349Simlasa; it seems to me that the problem isn't "too many NPCs"

Yeah, I've realized I phrased that badly... the 'bloat' is not their number but their prominence in the game, relative to the PCs. The number of them isn't what's extreme, it's that they're all on stage at once, crowding the rest of us out.
Thanks for letting me go on about this though... it's helped me clarify my thoughts on the matter and forge a way ahead. I'm hoping the players can assist the GM to make this a better campaign for all of us.

Talking to a GM about doing a bad job and getting a peaceful resolution can be difficult.  This is worsened by the fact that your systemic examples are going to highlight that the problem is in how he portrays his wife's characters.  Conflicts of interest can be a bitch.

You can try to be gentle.  Absolutely do this privately.  But there will still be a high chance of backfire in this case.

You may need a backup plan.  The best route is, if other players have this problem as well, to simply request a new game, a new setting, and preferably have one in mind.  If everyone says, "It was fun, but we want to try something new, would you keep GMing for us" most decent GMs will say yes and give it a try.  If he says no, he probably wasn't going to be reasonable to begin with.

Incidentally, this lets you tackle the issue of resurgent NPCs one at a time if they crop up rather than asking the GM to discard the whole cast.