alt Hacker NewsAgree. They seem to have a “price per piece” equation. Perhaps as a result, the 5+ sets are made of hundreds of small pieces.
Older sets had larger foundational and platform pieces which gave a good starting place for new creative builds.
Today, airplanes fuselages, wings, and car chassis are instead built up piece by piece.
It’s hard for my 6 year old to start creative builds that are stable when he hardly has any pieces larger than 2x6 across dozens of sets.
My wife found a huge mixed bin from the 80s and 90s at an estate sale. It really helped.
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> Today, airplanes fuselages, wings, and car chassis are instead built up piece by piece.
Well, people did complain about the whole 'special pieces' trend that you praise.
5yo sets have smaller pieces but also use big foundational pieces. Also the builds are simpler and better explained. Sets for 8yo are more complex.
> Older sets had larger foundational and platform pieces which gave a good starting place for new creative builds.
They stopped doing the many unique parts because it was bankrupting them.
Several years ago I wrote this reddit post analyzing LEGO piece pricing: https://www.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/1328f52/detailed_lego...
It's a little out of date, but the conclusions are still relevant.
Main things of note: Brickheads are pretty economical as a "parts pack." No significant correlation between per-piece pricing and IP licensing (except for Star Wars). Star Wars and City sets are overpriced.