Price per piece, Lego is still roughly the same price. Sets are now more complicated and have higher piece counts. Small $5 sets with about 50 pieces that used

Price per piece, Lego is still roughly the same price. Sets are now more complicated and have higher piece counts. Small $5 sets with about 50 pieces that used to command shelf space are not polybags. The bricks are the same. I think they don't hold the same value because the minifigures are non-standard. And they had a Minifigures blind bag set as well that used the same molds/prints. So most of the reason to buy the sets could be had by buying a display box of Minifigures.