Some off-the-cuff introspection:
Not sure if this is a real sentiment or if i'm straying into "make up a guy" territory but thinking about the idea of "Why bother making X out of lego if you're just going to cover up all the things that make it look like lego" or similar thoughts
Covering up all the studs, proliferation of curved slopes and specialized pieces in Speed Champions, etc...
To be honest, i understand a certain stripe of this in the face of Lego Camera That Looks Almost Identical To A Real Camera But Is Non-Functional And Double The Price (for collectors, at least, ignoring the build process and parts reuse entirely)
But i think what draws me most strongly to this style of building is that the things i want to make just... don't already exist. I can't buy a model kit for something i made up, i can't find the kind of scifi toy cars i want anywhere, furry models in general are very niche, all that sort of thing.
Lego is an artistic medium for me that is almost entirely devoid of the usual frictions that come with sculpting. That ease comes at a premium, to be sure, and is not without its limits, but it's something very special.
Dunno where this came from all of a sudden. The Unknowable Moods