I was also dismayed by their focus on movie tie-ins and set-specific pieces, but I really like the LEGO landmark/architecture series: http://architecture.lego.

I was also dismayed by their focus on movie tie-ins and set-specific pieces, but I really like the LEGO landmark/architecture series: http://architecture.lego.com/en-us/products/ http://architecture.lego.com/en-us/products/ They're built with pretty much all standard pieces (though not necessarily standard colors).