In recent years LEGO is ver much in franchise/brands, with specialised sets reach from StarWars to Batman. Nowadays kids get sets and build them once and that's it.
The joy of LEGO used to be to build what you had in mind with mainly generic bricks.
The new sets do have a few weird "only for that set" bricks, like batman helicopter blades or weird rubber Jedi hair pieces, but generally everything still fits together with everything else. I will say that there does seem to be a high percentage of small round 1x1 transparent studs. Every set seems to come with loads of 'em.
But yeah, he builds a set by the instructions once, lets it stay together maybe a month, and then it's just parts going into the bins of bricks, to be endlessly remade into whatever catches his fancy.
Creativity is what you make of it.
And that hasn't changed now. My son has tons of Star wars, police, etc, and other sets. And just like I did as a kid; the set gets built once and then broken down in a mass of pieces used to build completely new creations.
It still is—they have more of that style of set out than ever.