'm going to reply to your comment because it says a couple of things that I wanted to mention too, which is that I have a much harder time with lego now because all of their sets are so *heavily themed*, whether it's Star Wars or Bionic or Harry Potter or whatever.

I'm with you on this. The strict themes mean that all the pieces are so specialised you can hardly build anything *but* what the package shows; what fun is that?! :D I'm so glad I grew up back when you could buy a bucket of basic pieces for a reasonable price.