Oh, I've had these pieces for quite some time now. "Shiny" pieces all over in the Technic sets (mostly noticeable with red pieces).
I also have different slopes with the new Creator House. I have two Building Bonanzas, too, but haven't checked the slopes yet :-$
When I built the 8289 Fire Truck I also noticed that some Technic pieces almost "slipped" into each other when they used to be really hard to get together with older sets.
Also I noticed a piece swap in the newer Technic sets, 8282 Quad Bike and the 8289 Fire Truck:
After reading Yoda's review of the Quad Bike I decided to buy it but it took me some months. When I finally got it and went to build it I couldn't find a certain piece. I was angry because I really had had problems with missing pieces in Technic sets for the past year and I couldn't believe that in a small set like the Quad Bike a piece would be missing, too. It was this piece the instructions asked for:
There were lots of this piece, though:
Then I noticed this was the one I'm supposed to use! There was no additional paper, though, that showed the exchange like it sometimes did in other sets.
Same thing with the Fire Truck, but here only in one color: red was there as shown in the instructions, gray came in the "2nd version" *wacko*
It's not like this piece plays a vital role for the model's look but if the note is missing you search for an eternity until you notice it has been exchanged >:-(
Oh, and since Athos mentioned it, I've made my mind up about the Cafe Corner - as soon as I saw the glass windows of the Cafe Corner. They bug me big time. Hence I won't buy it. Should it ever be on sale (at least 50 %) I might consider it. At full price - no.