When I was a kid they had sort of started the branding effort. At that time LEGO was primarily doing creative in-house theme lines, but some branding as well.

Kid-me deduced that the more generic sets had more pieces, so in an early attempt at cost optimization I leaned generic the few times I had money. Though, it was also cool to get some sets with interesting pieces that let me branch out. Vanilla bricks can be limiting at times.