As a kid I had a ton of legos and my main obsession were technic sets (Still have them). But, before technic sets I had a bunch of the early town themed sets. So for example if you bought the gas station, it comes with a little mechanic figure and tow truck. Most of the blocks were standard and a few specialty blocks rounded out the set like windows, doors, auto chassis parts, wheels, even trees and plants. Of course the majority of the blocks were generic enough so you could build whatever. Even the technic sets gave you a ton of freedom to build whatever.
Now have a look at the modern licensed sets and notice how MOST of the pieces are specialty. Those specialty parts are there to add more features but they are completely useless outside of their intended position in the licensed puzzle. How do you turn that fancy haunted house into a boat or truck? Lame.
Assuming you're talking this one - https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/haunted-house-10273 - I'm failing to see the specialty parts, outside of a couple of things like the spiderweb. Even the organ is brick-built from parts that could be repurposed in a number of ways (for example, exhaust pipes on a car or truck).
That is not even close to what I am describing. A licensed set is a set that contains licensed material like star wars and marvel. e.g. https://www.lego.com/en-us/themes/marvel
There are sets that are just busts of characters heads like darth vader or an infinity hand, whatever that is, which are more of a one time build puzzle rather than a palette you can turn into something else.
I'm still not seeing what you're talking about. The Darth Vader head and the Infinity Gauntlet, for example, are both built out of standard pieces. Sure, it's a limited color palette, but it still wouldn't be hard to repurpose either to use for parts of a spaceship or themed building or whatever. Even on the page you linked, the only really specialized parts on display are the spiderwebs, the Gargantos tentacles, and the Venom teeth; everything else is ordinary brick-built stuff, including the large robots/mechs, which are built on a Technic frame rather than any specialized parts.
Now have a look at the modern licensed sets and notice how MOST of the pieces are specialty. Those specialty parts are there to add more features but they are completely useless outside of their intended position in the licensed puzzle. How do you turn that fancy haunted house into a boat or truck? Lame.