I have the program called "CCleaner" installed (usually known as Crap Cleaner) and it records all Cookies being used. It will permanently save any of the cookies you select to be saved and all others are deleted each time you boot up the computer. With this program you don't have to be bothered about unwanted cookies any more.
"I am not sure if each of those 25 was a "new" cookie or just an update to an existing cookie, but the number really surprised me."
It's because each ad-zone has separate cookies, so if we have 4 ad-zones on the page you may see 4x the "same" cookie. They're what push up the number. It's fairly normal and completely legitimate. We only use a handful of cookies ourselves.