I'm not trying to say there's no fun in the newer sets—that'd be dumb—but they're harder to build & maintain in play due to higher part-counts for the same (or smaller!) size, and tend to devote a lot of that part count to smoothing over surfaces or building up odd angles, which harms customizability. If a lot of what you liked about LEGO sets (versus brick buckets) was customizing, building atop, or re-theming them, the modern ones are a huge step back for that, though they definitely look way better.
The way higher part-count of mostly-tiny bricks also makes them miserable to pick out of a mixed set of bricks. Damn near impossible to re-construct if they get torn up and make it into a well-populated brick bin. I remember being able to mix the generic bricks and a dozen largish sets freely and never having much trouble picking them back out—phew man, these new ones are not like that.
My kids have lots of fun with LEGO but the sets are... not a big contributor to that, minifigs aside. Once they get busted up—and again, they're harder to restore post-customization or repair as they take a little damage here and there—that's it, probably never see them together again, and my kids are drowning in tiny pieces from those sets and starved for larger ones when they build their own stuff. Brick buckets and large plates purchased piecemeal are much better bang-for-the-buck, the way they use them. We're mostly sticking to those and much smaller sets, having been burned by the big ones.
The new ones definitely aren't as well suited to the same play-purposes as the old sets, though maybe they're better for some other play styles or uses than those were, I dunno. They absolutely, 100% look much better.
oh, I understand your complaint, but also consider than a few years ago people were complaining that newer sets were "dumbed down" or "too few parts per dollar" or "using large prebuilt parts" instead of using smaller parts. In the end you can't please everybody :).
Yeah, for sure. For all I know there's some major play-benefit to the newer sets that I don't know about and haven't happened to see with my kids, off-setting the use/play cases for which they're definitely less well-suited now.
The way higher part-count of mostly-tiny bricks also makes them miserable to pick out of a mixed set of bricks. Damn near impossible to re-construct if they get torn up and make it into a well-populated brick bin. I remember being able to mix the generic bricks and a dozen largish sets freely and never having much trouble picking them back out—phew man, these new ones are not like that.
My kids have lots of fun with LEGO but the sets are... not a big contributor to that, minifigs aside. Once they get busted up—and again, they're harder to restore post-customization or repair as they take a little damage here and there—that's it, probably never see them together again, and my kids are drowning in tiny pieces from those sets and starved for larger ones when they build their own stuff. Brick buckets and large plates purchased piecemeal are much better bang-for-the-buck, the way they use them. We're mostly sticking to those and much smaller sets, having been burned by the big ones.
The new ones definitely aren't as well suited to the same play-purposes as the old sets, though maybe they're better for some other play styles or uses than those were, I dunno. They absolutely, 100% look much better.