My phone doesn't have a huge number of third party apps installed, but saw this chart today and it's a little worrying nonetheless:
I'm not sure exactly what "account info" describes. I did check the original report but it's not defined there either. Also, I'm not sure whether the authors corrected for the fact that some apps might require some information — e.g. location access for some kind of mapping app — to actually be useful. As a result, these numbers could be an overestimate of the actual number of apps that are doing something unexpected with your data. Furthermore, it might explain why even a substantial proportion of paid apps require these permissions. (For ad-supported apps, location information might be requested for some targeted advertising component of the app.)
It's unlikely that Google will ever allow fine control of app permissions to enable the user to install an app without necessarily giving it access to e.g. your address book. The only options on stock Android are to take the app, warts and all, or do without. So, definitely worth considering installing PDroid to help deal with this issue.