Devils advocate here, but Gen 1 sold extremely well, even amongst the system sets that you suppose in recent years have been the type of product that lead to constraction’s downfall. Kids needed no more imagination to play with system sets then than they do now, so if imagination really was the key to constraction’s death, then how do we explain the success of Gen 1 amongst system sets that already required much less of it(imagination)?
Because Bionicle was quite compelling and nicely presented amidst the rather iffy lines of the 2000s (You still got promo disks even if you didnt have net on your comp). Plus internet and video gaming havent boomed as much then.
Marketing and presentation for G1s most important years was on point with the times, G2 was a quasy promo for older fans while story wise and marketing wise trying get new young fans. It didnt knew what was its goal and it showed.
That’s what I believe actually, but the original argument of the OP prioritizes imagination over marketing and presentation. I feel that the individual themes that have made up recent constraction lines have been lackluster in the departments you mention, not that constraction itself is a sinking ship. Like you (Seem to), I believe that the marketing and presentation aspects of a theme are far more likely to determine it’s success than the imagination factor the original post proposes- a factor I believe is a non issue. My post above is asking him to justify his theory within the parameters it set for itself- so your post doesn’t really answer the question, even though it likely is the right answer under normal circumstances