It's a business, what to you expect? Also over the last 30 years!!! The price per brick didn't change as much as people might think and the molds, designs, prints have been improved over the years as well as the sets details. Also you don't have to decide for either a "halfway to being sentient" toy OR LEGO toys but you can have both. If children still feel the same about LEGO as I did then I absolutely can understand what they see in it. Also LEGO is doing a great job in marketing their products. While you can create your own world with LEGO, even using it as a means of art (a lot of MOCs are compareable to paintings or sculptures), and use it again after years of catching dust, your "halfway to being sentient" toys mostly are cheap plastic crap where you get what you buy and cannot create anything of your own. The digital world is making progress though, but a hands on toy still seems to be a good choice if you ask me. I feel exactly the same. LEGO is a european product that is sold cheaper tot he U.S. than to most european countries. Also you have a different discount system than we have which gives you insane opportunities (but for exclusive sets?). You have to have this system as your economy is made up differently and probably most people don't take into considerationt that you pay the store price + TAXES instead of taxes being included. (As far as I know this is not true for ordering directly from shop at home). Right now at 1,00€=0.88$ the price being 149,99€ to 170.00€ is exactly matched one to one (170.00$ = 149,79€). (We use "," instead of "." Just so nobody gets confused about what I'm doing here ^.^ ).