The build-ability of playmobil has been talked in great length. When Playmobil started with stecks it was considered the golden years. The medieval, western and safari sets to this day are quite the collectors choice. Then slowly Playmobil went for systemX which in my opinion worked great for modern theme sets.
Then some paper pusher , sharp pencil numb nut decided to go for (as Tahra calls it “system y”) the modular, un-expandable hunk of junk that seemed to appease some lazy parents who were too concerned with no wanting to spend 30 minutes with their child and build a set. “Let’s dumb down the whole brand for a few lazy parents” was probably the marketing pitch.
I'm kind of in 2 minds about this. I don't think that Playmobil is ever going to successfully be a 'building' toy - anymore than I think that Lego ever successfully works as a narrative/dolls house toy.
The flexibility of Steck often seems to be exagerated. As a child, I owned more Playmobil (by a long way) than anyone I knew. Was there much I could do to build interesting, varied buildings? Not really. The Victorian sets aren't actually compatible with any others, the Framework window walla have built in connectors, and in general you just don't have that many parts as a child. But I think it hits the sweet spot where children can build it themselves, it's easy to assemble and the parts are reusable in new sets. I'd also say that for narrative-play the building is probably the least important part, compared to the figures and the accessories.
System-X is obviously more flexible, and I'm sure it was designed with an eye towards build-ability. And while I do think they've gone way too far in the opposite direction with the huge pieces that can only really be used for one design, I can see what pushed them in that direction. As someone who assembled the 3186 Airport (which isn't even the worst of them) - I can understand why the average parent didn't find inserting 5,000 red connectors to be a joyful way to spend time with their children.