I was a lego kid for sure. Every christmas I looked forward to a new box of legos. I can only remember one kit, it was a car with a working engine/pistons/suspension, etc. You are right, all the kits now seem to take the creativity out of it. Back then, most were pretty much 'parts' with some lego men thrown in here and there. I remember building huge space ships and buildings, and cars. My friends and I use to have demolition derby cars. You built cars out of the parts bin and then smash them into one another. The last car with at least 3 wheels was the winner.
As far as matchbox, I too had all the matchbox cars with tracks. I had the loop with connector corners, etc. However, my favorite matchbox track was I believe the "superspeedway" one where you had to long straights and big banked blue corner pieces. On the front stretch you had handles where you had to time hit the back of your car with the launcher on every lap. I had a blast with that thing!
I was also into the slot cars, remote control cars, etc. I was pretty much into anything that had cars involved.