>>9849770As a kid, I didn't like the gigantic pieces lego was starting to use in the early 2000s as well. I got King Leo's castle as a birthday gift and remember being pretty disappointed in it. At face value, it's cool being that it's a big castle playset, but I always thought that it would be better to have more bricks than gigantic panel pieces. Earlier castle had a lot of panels but they were really mixed well in with smaller bricks for a good effect, parts felt more versatile and figures were more mass-able and focus on army building rather than individual character.
Some themes did it better than others. Alpha Team used a ton of gigantic parts with low piece counts but it seems to fit that aesthetic better. Plus it's a theme not rooted in realism so it felt like big assemblies went with one another better.
Now, sets like the blimp and rock raiders are just oddities of their time. And we tend to overlook their shortcomings and focus on what was unique at the time that we remember.
