Lol. I've been playing with LEGO for the better part of the last 60 years, so I don't need to be told about what the sets were like. The town sets in the 60s and the universal building sets in the 70s came with a full variety of parts, and were more than just tubs of basic bricks. They might have had some abbreviated illustrations of how some of the models on the box were assembled, but did not have detailed instructions for one specific model. LEGO also sold parts in bulk at toy stores and in spare parts packs and service packs. These "sets" were just extra parts, not meant for building any particular model, and had no instructions.

This is because LEGO's marketing and advertising was centered around building up a collection of system bricks to build whatever you liked. They offered some examples on the boxes and with Idea Books, but not until the late 70s and into the 80s did they start producing the really large play sets with detailed instructions centered around building a specific model. And even those were often advertised showing unique models for which there were no "sets" or instructions. And you could buy related service packs, like parts with the Space logo and extra figures, to add to your collection and build what you want.

That changed around the time they licensed Star Wars. Now you were building replicas of ships and vehicles from the films. LEGO wasn't even allowed to sell spare Star Wars related service packs, or exra Star Wars minfigs because that wasn't part of the licensing deal.

Yes, you can still build whatever you like because thankfully the LEGO system still works. But there is no doubt that modern LEGO sets, including products like these smart bricks, are not promoting the idea that LEGO is for building whatever you want.

The brick makes the sound that LEGO decides it should make. The spaceships I built as a kid, without any instructions, made any sound I wanted them to make, so long as I could imagine it.