[CDSlice]

Lego sets intended for younger children tend to have more large, single purpose pieces. For example, [0] is a set intended for children as young as 4 and it has the single purpose car chassis pieces you mentioned. However, in the same City theme this set intended for 5+ year olds [1] has the same sort of generic chassis you remember. The city theme as a whole though does tend to have more single purpose pieces such as plane cockpits or boat hulls, but even then you can use the pieces to build new boats or planes. Furthermore, the Creator theme has no single purpose pieces for at all, those models are made completely out of generic pieces (not just bricks mind you, there are lots of slopes and other kinds of really useful pieces used). For example, [2] is a pirate ship made completely out of generic pieces that even has instructions to rebuild it into a Pirate inn or a skull island. If pirates aren't your fancy, how about a monster burger truck [3] or a twin rotor helicopter [4]? Again, no single purpose pieces in sight. Even the modern Star Wars sets tend to have mostly generic pieces and even the custom pieces made for the set tend to be things like windscreens that can be used for custom spaceships.

[0] https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/garage-center-60232

[1] https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/service-station-60257

[2] https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/pirate-ship-31109

[3] https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/monster-burger-truck-3110...

[4] https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/twin-rotor-helicopter-310...

[kungtotte]

Maybe that's what I've been experiencing. He's four and a half so mostly we've been buying slightly "younger" Lego I guess.

Those 3-in-1 sets really impressed me though! We've got two of them and as you say they come with instructions for several different ways of using the same pieces, and they're generic enough that you can build mostly anything.

We're definitely picking up more of those as both me, my dad, and my kid all like to just free-form build things most of the time. The creator pieces are actually really great because of the slopes and curved pieces that complement your ideas and help put the finishing touches on things.