This fascinating story on Lego gloomily reports Lego's struggles in the fast-changing modern day toy market. I was disturbed by the trend away from simple bricks and towards less versatile and more specific pieces even when I was a kid; it irked me that I couldn't use the castle wall pieces for anything except castle walls, at least not without uglifying the resulting creation. (I eventually tired of multi-colored cities, and wanted to expand into more aestheticly controlled structures while maintaining the same creative freedom. But Legos are expensive.)