[corrral]

The new ones are much clearer than they used to be in the 80s and 90s.

I'm convinced the old-style ones were the reason I buried the needle the one time I was given a cognitive test that specifically tested spatial reasoning. The old sets' instructions were basically 3d spot-the-difference puzzles, in which orientation might even change between states, so they were pretty much training for that kind of test.

The new ones have a little of that, but a lot more arrows pointing things out, little insets highlighting important parts, et c. Plus they put the pieces in numbered bags so you don't have them all out at once, for medium-sized or larger sets! Much, much easier than they used to be.

Flip side is the old ones used larger pieces, on average. The modern sets are all fiddly, tiny bricks, which does make them a little harder to assemble (and much harder—nearly impossible—to repair from memory if they're damaged during play)