Even with the old Sandcrawler set you didn't get a separator. Not once in all my years buying sets in the early-mid 2000s was there a brick separator included. You had to buy that shit separately, and the stores I went to never had them in person, so it was like something you had to order online.

Now, they give them to you with pretty much any set of over 1,000 pieces or so.

Same. I've never seen these until now. They sure would've been pretty helpful though!

This is like one of those stories where someone finally realizes that they grew up poor.

Lol, there were 2 in the scuba diver set I got as a kid.