I have been doing the same things with our photos. We have been married almost 34 years. Many times, we had duplicates made to give away except most times, none were given away. I sorted the photos by years, as best as I could, since many did not have a date printed on the back. I have created photo albums of our first 10-15 years; after that I became discouraged. My solution was to scan the photos on a high end scanner that can scan the photos through a document feeder. Then I sorted into folders by activity and year, sometimes per child or family member. Once they were scanned, I shredded the photos, unless I knew someone specifically wanted the paper copy.
I am happy with this solution because I have two sons, and I know they will not do anything with photos that are not sorted or labeled. My in-laws left us two plastic tubs of photos, many without names or dates. I have no idea what to do with those items.
I think the younger generations will be glad to have a thumb drive or DVD with photos to keep.