Personally, I felt Mattel has been doing this with the Take Along/Take and Play range sets long before Trackmaster Revolution. If you look at the Learning Curve sets, there was a lot more 'standard' track, track that was completely free of the playset and usually stored away inside the playset in some way, hidden in a cubbyhole. The Mattel sets mostly feature track in a static configuration that folds up into a twisted mess up against the playsets. It is very hard to find any sets with track that isn't permanently attached to the playset and even harder to find track packs. While they are still portable, the static track layouts remove any place for imagination. I think the only freestanding pieces of the newer track style I have were manufactured by HiT Toys under the Take Along name, before Mattel was involved.
I own very few Take-Along pieces of track that can't be used outside of their respective playsets, the inclined part of the Quarry Playset is the only thing that springs to mind. You could very easily make a complete layout of Take Along track without a single destination. I think you would be hard-pressed to make a featureless layout with Mattel's offerings.
tl;dr Mattel has done the same thing with the Take Along/Take and Play toys
I own very few Take-Along pieces of track that can't be used outside of their respective playsets, the inclined part of the Quarry Playset is the only thing that springs to mind. You could very easily make a complete layout of Take Along track without a single destination. I think you would be hard-pressed to make a featureless layout with Mattel's offerings.
tl;dr Mattel has done the same thing with the Take Along/Take and Play toys
I have a website where I have been writing about and photographing many of the sets and pieces that I find interesting.
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