I am not too familiar with the current day sets, but around the early 2000s they started pushing the branded movie tie in sets really hard and I do remember see

I am not too familiar with the current day sets, but around the early 2000s they started pushing the branded movie tie in sets really hard and I do remember seeing sets where a "piece" was essentially half a tie fighter wing and had no real reasonable reusability. I have heard they have pulled back on this almost entirely. I would agree though that some specialized pieces are fine. My memories from the early 90s were probably the best balance from my time using Legos. By the mid-late 90s the castle and pirate sets did start moving into imho overly specialized pieces which then lead to the 2000s nadir.