You come off really, really salty in that opening paragraph.

> I have a bunch of Lego from decades ago that I am slowly offloading to kids of family and friends

Surely even you have to admit that the engineering quality is what allows you to be able to hand down those bricks?

Well I am salty. And I can't stand what how consumerist LEGO has become. Plus I don't like evangelists. Instead of allowing kids to figure out the value of something themselves, they fill their heads with bullet points about what they are supposed to like about a product.

Kids may not care about product value. But the people who buy the stuff for them do. I know I prefer to buy LEGO over competitor products for my children because I know they won't ever have difficulties building due to parts not fitting well.

I had an opportunity to help a kid in the family put together lego-like model. Parts fitted so bad. One or two were not even fully shaped as if not enough plastic was injected into the mold.

> have a bunch of Lego from decades ago that I am slowly offloading to kids of family and friends.

I think that proves the grand-parents point about quality just fine, even if you didn't buy it with that bonus in mind. People today do know that LEGO lasts for decades and it may factor into their decisions. It may also factor into yours now if you buy a new toy for a kid.

And yet you didn't buy a competitive building toy other than LEGO.

It's almost like consumers aren't basing their decisions on random dogma.