I've been extremely sad the past 5 years with lego. I graduated college in 2006 and when I got a real job I thought that for Christmas I would be getting my niece and nephew legos. I loved them growing up (technic for the win!) and wanted to get them started on this obsession as well. But try as I might the trend that I saw start when I was 10 or 12 has continued to almost completely corrupt what I recall lego as being. No longer is it a where you get to imagine and design, and then play, all the "work" of design and imagination has been removed leaving only the "play". That's all kids want right, to play? Aw well, at least I got to have some good times.