Toys of your youth

This, too. I thought at the time LEGO had struck a very good balance between using simply LEGO bricks and additional specialist parts. Before then, it was all a bit too bricky for my taste and afterwards the non-bricky bits started to completely overwhelm the bricks. I'm well aware that I may just be holding this opinion because it was around when I was most receptive to it, but some friends also had lots of older and newer LEGO, and somehow I thought this was just about the best range.

this