An idea about toys and making stuff

Not sure if this is even the right title, but I think the idea might have something.

I was at my school reunion yesterday and I stood next to a wall where I made one of the great discoveries of my school days. The 1960s spy movies were all the rage and we decided to make our own. Unsurprisingly, I guess, I was the only one who made anything. Crude approximations of tiny spy tvs and the suchlike. But the brought toys wouldn't have been that much more sophisticated.

Now days you can buy a quality of modelling and interactivity in the toy isle that only the best hobbyist could aspire too. And it's cheap.

For example:

Current 5 inch Dalek toy (October 2010)

12 inch figure 1965 http://www.skaro.org/toys.htm

Two Daleks and a Mechanoid - slightly better I had the one on the right, and that was the pinnacle of available toy Daleks - these are all about 7" tall. http://www.skaro.org/toys.htm There's an advert for them I found here: dalek ad 

You can see the difference in quality in these toys. The blue Dalek could easily be duplicated with  cardboard and a bit of imagination. The others are more accurate but still fairly simple. Cost of the grey 1965 Dalek: 4 shillings and sixpence. (Or 14 copies of the 1965 Beano) Cost of the 2010 Dalek, £10 (Or five copies of the 2010 Beano). Not quite sure if comparing the cost of the Beano is relevant. But it is some kind of yardstick.

So we deny people the chance to make things for themselves; by making stuff so well we set the entry bar too high. By setting the price so cheap there is no financial motive to make it for yourself. Finally by making it so explicit we deny the imagination.