I am not afflicted with children and thus don't have to make decisions on whether to buy them plastic toys or not ;-)
(And when I do give people presents, they tend to be home-made ones or second-hand, which was always the case in our family, mainly because most of the really interesting stuff is only ever available second-hand -- a shiny generic boxed toy with lights on it was rather less appealing than a leaflet with instructions on how to build more 1930s Meccano cranes using the bits from the family set!)