We have a 20 months old son and I've been rather appalled by some of the toys. There's a brand vtech that specializes in toys that makes random sound and light and even worse, makes some sort of callback sound a few minutes after the last interaction with the toy to make sure the toddler comes back and continues playing with it.

I don't get why anyone would think those toys are good. It doesn't teach anything, pressing a button will result in completely different sound randomly so there's not even a cause and effect relationship between an action from the toddler and the light/sound coming out of the toy.

That said, coming back to this article, we did get some metal toy cars for our son and he happily makes vroom sounds while moving them around (he has learned that from the older kids in our apartment building). So at least imagination influenced by seeing other kids hasn't completely disappeared.