Their sets have always been expensive, though my older (late 80s through late 90s) ones were much bigger for a comparable price (with similar or smaller part co

Their sets have always been expensive, though my older (late 80s through late 90s) ones were much bigger for a comparable price (with similar or smaller part counts—they love putting hundreds of tiny little pieces for really fiddly construction in modern sets, it's awful, I assume CAD or something is to blame) but a regular old box o' bricks is pretty cheap, and if you're not trying to buy complete high-demand sets they're cheap in mixed brick lots on ebay, too.