Also, when I played with Lego (that was actually during the dark times, the late nineties and early 2000s) I actually loved special and weird pieces I would get

Also, when I played with Lego (that was actually during the dark times, the late nineties and early 2000s) I actually loved special and weird pieces I would get in sets (excluding pieces with stickers)! If those pieces weren’t overly large and specific at the same time – and they rarely were – my growing collections of weird bits and pieces could be endlessly repurposed in cool new builds. I was always on the lookout for cool new computer monitors or cool new wheels or whatever to build cool new things with. I would definitely agree that the late nineties and early 2000s were aesthetically a dark time for Lego and I actually prefer the aesthetics of today’s Lego sets (colors, part choice, building styles), but I’m not really aware of any kid for whom those sets – the standard ones you could always get, the police station, train station, the space shuttle, the cargo train station, the passenger double-decker train (ah, memories) – were the be-all end-all. They were always just a starting point and the whole things was to repurpose them and you really always could with those sets. And then those weird pieces were a cool assest that allowed you to be more specific. I can see the ascetic ways of building only with four types of blocks or so, sure, but I’m not sure that’s something I personally would have enjoyed. I liked my weird bricks.