In some AFOL circles, they'll jump down your throat for not using the "correct" term "stud". The canonical term for the "flat-topped" is tile.
My personal gripe is just the explosion of special purpose pieces that Lego vends today. Less is more Lego.
I've personally been amazed at the possibilities that seemingly single-purpose parts open up in the hands of a skilled builder.
One example is the "stud shooter" -- a utensil for minifigures to shoot out 1x1 round plates. Check out what these folks did with it:
https://www.newelementary.com/2020/05/stud-shooter-15391%20-...
New Elementary is a gold mine for creative uses for "specialized" parts.
And this is great, but when you have small children who just want to join things together, a lot of the modern sets have a fairly limited ability to customise.
It’s frustrating. They sell plenty of simple sets, it’s just so attractive to buy the fancy ones recreating some movie.
I do like how many bigger modern sets come with a "brick tool". I always wanted one as a kid when, but they were a separate purchase and I never wanted one bad enough for it to make my wishlists, over more sets. Even the $80+ sets (in 80s/90s dollars!) back then didn't come with them. They are handy.
Lego has significantly reduced the number of special purpose pieces it uses since the 90's. Back then, the number of specialized one-off pieces Lego was using helped nearly sink the company. That's partially responsible for the increase in the number of small parts they use now -- it allows them to recreate some of the intricacy you could have with an equivalent larger piece.
A lot of the weird/specialized pieces Lego puts out these days are minifigure-related in some way.