Ultratechnical Lego

Lego has some cool gears and other mechanical parts, and it makes a fantastic mechanical experimenter's kit. However, in the past few years, they have been moving away from mechanical parts and into pre-molded decorative assemblies that are more kid-pleasing. I propose that they bring back their best mechanical parts, and create a bunch of new parts, such as:

Pawls Larger gears, and gear sectors Big turntable components Bearings Very large, strong beams. Simple optical elements Longer axles of stiffer material Linear motion components Planetary gearsets Etc.

And put this stuff in a new line of ultra-technic Lego, for mechanically inclined hobbyists. Sets could be priced higher (even though the regular sets are already so expensive) since they would have more limited appeal, but I think they should be able to sell them for a reasonable price. I know a that a creative person can come up with a clever solution to a mechanical problem with a limited collection of parts, and that is a big part of the fun of Lego. But if we had bigger, stronger parts, and a bigger variety of parts, we could tackle more interesting problems, and advanced builders would be less limited in how far they could go with an idea. Since Lego seems to be heading in the opposite direction, I’ve been wondering what it would take to make up a set of Lego compatible parts by a third party. I’ve looked up suppliers of plastic mechanical parts, but they seem like mostly overkill for toy-grade items, and they cost too much. There are zillions of inexpensive parts for hobby model makers, so a Lego-compatible set of parts shouldn’t be too hard to make for someone who has the right connections. If you know about producing runs of toy and hobby parts, or have good links, please post them.