That's what I did with Hognose snakes. I originally got three, lost one to a tumor, but I felt like I learned so much more about them because I had a pair. Not sure why, I guess just looking at it from a "I might breed these" angle it forced, or I should say motivated, me to do more research and learn more than I may have had I only had the one. Not necessarily information that I didn't know already but it made me learn about a different part of their life cycle and through that I ended up learning more about the species in general.
Slightly off topic I know, but I really like the idea of pairs.