I understand the need for less articulation.
I have two nephews. While one can properly play with brick sets, the younger one (age: 3) tends to "ruin" those and lose some parts. It's a good thing that I didn't spend a fortune on their toys. I know sooner or later the toys will be lost or destroyed.
Instead of toy bricks, I wanted to give them something more durable and big, so it won't easily get lost. The Hasbro's Titan Heroes action dolls seems to satisfy all that but they are priced unreasonably. Good thing, there are knock offs!
They cost about a third or less the of original's price. With that, expect the quality to be lower. I picked the Titan Tech Heroes knock offs because they are based on the movie version. Regular Titan Heroes are based on comics version. The "tech" part refers to the light and sound effects. There is a button on the chest and a pre-recorded sound is played as the chest lights up. The recorded sounds do not match the characters on these knock off dolls, though. They also don't have the hip joints and the hollowed plastic is visible from under the feet. Despite all that the kids loved it.
They loved it more than the 12-inch articulated Spider-Man I gave them. They find it difficult to make Spider-Man stand. When kids simulate a fight scene, they don't pose the dolls in different fighting poses. They try to smash the toys together. The jointed body of Spider-Man leaves him posed like a broken doll, looking like he's defeated. The knock offs, without hip joints, retains their strong stance after the "fight", looking very much like a winner.
So having less articulation has it's benefits especially for kids. The same goes for fashion dolls. How often do our dolls need to do yoga poses? Even with higher articulation, have you seen how many people still pose their dolls like the model muse bodies with one or both hands on the waist? It's like the articulation is wasted.
