[estaseuropano]

The kids spilled over their Lego box a few days ago - so many unusable and pointless 1x1 round pieces, special weird shapes, etc. Its all the sets which are fun to build but seem more like a puzzle than a Lego set which you can really reuse, rebuild, etc. I'm not normally nostalgic, but my box as a child used to be all real blocks and I could build great stuff. Now its more marketing to sell more and more branded sets. Worst is the Lego city stuff though.

[lucideer]

If you think a 1x1 round piece is unusable/pointless, you are truly lacking in imagination.

Even the varied array of "one-off" weirdly specific pieces always find an unexpected application in a pinch somewhere. I've been recently quite entertained by the creative work of a Dublin lego-er making pubs (with many many small 1x1 round pieces, and a selection of weird one-offs for signage/etc.) https://snapwidget.com/embed/927292

[handrous]

> If you think a 1x1 round piece is unusable/pointless, you are truly lacking in imagination.

I think you're underestimating the percentage of bricks in modern sets that can be described like this. They're very hard to mash up (e.g. "I'm going to use these two castle sets to build a totally different GIANT castle!" or "Now this pirate base is an oceanographic research center!"), to add on to, and to repair if damaged. Plus they're just damn tiny for the part count.

They do sell the buckets still, which is always the retort to complaints about modern sets, but it makes me sad that the entire way I played with LEGO sets when I was growing up is nearly impossible with (most) modern sets (the ones intended for kids, I mean—I don't care if the ones plainly marketed to adults aren't good for those things, of course).