I've seen enough reviews of recent Lego sets to doubt this. Sets with a brick or two where the color is off, sets where the final model falls apart if you look at it wrong, and when there's fan designed alternatives which are more solid and better looking it's clear it wasn't a physical limitation.

Not to mention sets that indeed just feel like a ripoff, like the pyramid of giza which costs $130 and is actually just half of a pyramid, but the backside of the model has slots that let you connect it with another half if you buy two of them. And they even admit in the marketing it's an incomplete product with "Complete the pyramid - This model comes with clear instructions and can be connected to a second model (sold separately) to create a full pyramid", of course only visible after scrolling or looking at more product pictures.

They are. I should have added that Lego’s designers are a bit better still. You can get botanical sets from a lot of manufacturers, but the Lego ones are just nicer.