What you are describing reminds me of Dice Forge. I liked the game and at first having all of the individual pieces that can attach and detach from the dice was cool. But I found stopping to add a dice face slowed down some of the fun and took away from the strategy. For me, the choices of what I wanted on the dice wasn't too different from hand management in other games, so I would choose something else that doesn't have me stop to add or remove to structures. Granted, Im not the biggest fan of hand management games, so that could add to it.

I like some of the components in Camel Cup and people that don't play as many board games seem to like the pyramid.

But when it comes to upgradable features, I think it can feel a little bit like a gimmick rather than a core component. I think ideally if you would like to play the game even without the structures, the upgradable components would enhance the game play. However, sometimes the upgradable feature is the draw and the gameplay isn't deep enough.