I wonder how much the trend towards smaller pieces has affected this. There seem to be many more very small detail pieces in the kits now, which makes for lovely detailed models, but increases the part count without increasing the size noticably.

One of my frustrations with trying to get my kids into lego is the proliferation in these one and two stud pieces in relatively small kits that are otherwise perfect for kids. Those tiny pieces can be pretty hard for smaller children to put in place properly, and make the build instructions harder for them to follow on their own. They result in higher detailed models at the end of it, but both my kids found them very frustrating when they were smaller.