>>6416065They're above all inspiring and imagination provoking and really emphasized the fact you were working with a "system" not just a normal toy. Almost any older lego set looks great on display because it just looks impressive. As the other anon said it's simple yet competent. The older themes also didn't require copious amounts of autism and specialized parts to make more things in the same style of a theme so you could build something impressive and satisfying rather quickly with minimal parts without the countless infinitesimal parts in countless different color shades that almost make the notion of building something a chore and overwhelming to plan out.
Also older minifigures followed a great minimalist art direction that blended well across all themes and allowed body parts to easily be switched around to make different characters without looking out of place. A great example of this is star wars characters. The old ones had simple yet instantly recognizable features that had a distinct charm while new ones get so minute and complex with their detail that they might as well just start printing photographed textures on them.
