Comment by mikewarot

For me, Legos shouldn't ever include instructions, or anything other than generic parts. The whole idea is to dream up something, then reify it. It's so fetch!

When I started seeing the non-generic "build one thing" sets, with appropriately high sticker prices, Lego lost it's luster. The additional downside of ending up with special purpose pieces, just made it worse.

The precision with which the blocks are made is comparable to Ford's use of Gage blocks to make perfectly interchangeable parts across the globe. It's fascinating just how many of something can be made in this manner, and how the costs just keep slowly going down as the quantity scales up.