howitzer

Numerous stores in Bricklink have those with prices starting around 0,60€/piece so that seems like an obvious way forward.

Still works here.

No problems here.

Yes, pinhole would work, even though pinhole sits very small amount (1/20th of a brick) higher than the studhole on the side of the headlight brick so in theory it wouldn't be exactly on grid either, but such a small difference is insignificant. These flaws scream of a rush job with much of the quality control skipped.

Did you not watch the video at the time point I mentioned? It's place in the build is shown there quite clearly and if you watch it, you'll see that it indeed receives a stud and not a bar (66909 in particular). On the other side (where the illegality occurs) is also headlight brick, but raised one plate so the sideways stud of the headlight brick collides with the backside of the other one, this is all explained in detail there. Oh and I meant the video by Tiago Catarino which was linked on Thursday, not Racingbrick's video which ignores the entire matter.

It's used to receive stud sideways, see the video Auroralampinen posted above at 5 minutes in. A 1x1 brick with axlehole could've been used in it's place. This could be an explanation, as these problems indeed seem really easy to solve and these kind of flaws should never get through a proper quality control.

The two major flaws mentioned in the video are really bad, I mean how hard can it be to build the driveshaft properly, especially as the other end isn't connected into anything? Half-inserted axle isn't going to hold the gear end in place. For the other problem your mileage might vary, but in my view it's even worse as there's going to be stress and damage to the parts over longer periods of time. I was seriously considering getting this set even though it's a car, as it's finally something different as far as cars go, but now I don't know.

As was said in Racingbrick's video, it's car precisely because cars have mass appeal. Yes we get too many cars in Technic but this one breaks the pattern in that it's non-licensed and packed with functions so it should be far more interesting to Technic fans than whatever you can find in official sets. I would also get a kinetic sculpture, GBC or clockwork any day over another car, but let's face it: there's nowhere near as much market for those as there is for cars. As for the model itself, the functions seem great and the design is nice but I don't like the colour scheme. Somehow the white doesn't sit well at all in the model, perhaps it should be either completely red and black or perhaps the white should be replaced with some other colour. I guess this is a matter of taste and I'm still going to vote for it, just for the sake of being Technic, but if I were to ever build it, I'd try something else in the place of those white parts.

James Bond, Ghostbusters and Back to the Future cars have already been done in other themes, as have been various Batmobiles and so on. There's not that much space for actual innovation with movie cars. 1:8 scale is already big and cumbersome, hard to handle and to appreciate after finishing the build, moving to even larger scale would make them even worse in this regard. And of course the parts would be under much more strain as 1:6 scale would be over twice the weight of 1:8 (all else being equal). New large scale backhoe has been on the wishlist of practically everyone on this forum for a very long time now. We'll see what they do for the anniversary year but somehow I'm not having very high hopes...

According to Rebrickable 42100 has 4108 pieces with 102 of those being the extra "rock" pieces for it to handle so still over 4000 pieces for the machine itself, but just barely at that. And yeah, the very largest sets all seem to include some kind of extra which increases the part count - 42082 had those house things and 42055 came with a small secondary model and some round bricks to represent rocks. 42131 didn't have any extras though and with 3854 parts it's one of the biggest especially if you don't count the extras in other sets. I'm not sure how many parts the prefab house parts for 42082 were but I suspect it along with 42100 still have more parts for the main model than 42131. McLaren P1 had 3893 pieces so more than the bulldozer and only a bit over 200 pieces short of the supposed part count of 42232 so I don't think that's a crazy amount of parts for 1:8 car. 4500 or more would be a bit harder to imagine, at least for supercars.

I think what differentiated original Model Team from other themes was their scale and realistic looks and proportions for the time, as Technic was nowhere near in looks or realism and other themes even less so. In this sense Creator and Icons vehicles indeed are very much spiritual successors to Model Team. The more complex City sets could also be considered this, though realism in looks isn't the main target in their design. I think the functionality is rather irrelevant point, as Lego has come a long way since 90's and moving parts are today much more widely available even in small playsets and as you said, original Model Team vehicles really only had one function.

I hope I'm not being misunderstood with my previous comment, what I meant to say is that the actual designers of the sets are indeed doing great job. But they aren't the ones calling shots on what sets to make, their pricing, etc. and these are the constraints I mentioned. And yes, we here in EB are only a very small and very critical slice of the entire customer base of TLG, the current trend of having a lineup comprising almost entirely of fast cars is no doubt based on lots of market research and also plain numbers of sales. I'm not sure if Lego designer would be a dream job, perhaps to some it would be but they say one sure way to ruin a hobby is to attempt to turn it into a job, so personally I'd rather do something else to pay the bills and then enjoy my Lego on my own terms.

The general sentiment I've observed in this forum is that most people feel that the set designers are doing their job very well within the constraints imposed. Most sets are designed well while some sets have had shortcomings that can really only be explained by designer being very strictly constrained in a way that leaves the set with perhaps minor but very obvious flaws. The complaints here aren't generally about what the set designers do per se, but they're mostly about the available range of sets (cars, cars and more cars) and also about price not meeting the size and quality of the set (Volvo Excavator).

Of course the senior management instructs set designers on what to design and I doubt they read this forum even if some designers might.

You're not wrong, but sadly it seems that TLG is set in its direction and not at all interested in what we think here in this forum :(