Sword poor quality or a mechanical solution?

[Lobberuno]

One day, I looked for my old lego to increase my new collection of Kingdoms (after 10 years without acquiring castle). Those pieces are from the Black Knights, Wolfpack and the Dragon Masters. After cleaning them, I gathered the new weapons with the oldest ones and the first difference I noticed was the finish of the swords.

They used to be rigid and well defined compared to the new, although the finish is not well defined, now they are more flexible.

Is this a fault in quality or a mechanical solution to the swords and so they do not break so easily? (due to rigid objects are more likely to break than those which are flexible).

Update: Thank You both!

[Aliencat]

I've noticed a lot of weapons and pointy spikey things are made of a more flexible material now.
The quality as is, isn't poorer though. A lot of my old swords have those white lines where the plastic has been bent, the new swords are more durable against this, because they're more flexible.

[architect]

TLG switched to the polypropylene swords around the time of Dragon Masters in 1993. This was most likely due to the fact that the old abs swords broke easily when played with by children.

Later versions of the PP swords have additional texture, are more flexible, and include a large indentation at the intersection of the hilt and blade. This is an especially common feature in short swords post Knight Kingdoms 2.

Ben