Do you think kids and parents these days no longer see an importance or respect for toys?
I find myself wondering can we as parents be too pro toys/imaginative play? Am I too pro-toys and "old fashioned" in my thinking?

I've always encouraged my kids to play from a young age. I try to give them home environments - their rooms and our lounge since we don't have a back yard in an apartment - where they always have access to different things they can play and create with.
My son gets hassled for playing with toys by some of his friends and I often get harassed by parents for allowing him to have so much play time as I don't put him into classes every day after school. But my son derives so much sheer pleasure from his toys - both from collecting them and creating vivid and amazing imaginary stories with them I can't possibly fathom how playing with toys can ever be bad for any child or why parents would condemn it.

My son had a couple of friends come over for his 9th birthday. He took them down to his room to see his Transformers and asked "do you want to play Transformers or lego?"
They said "No" and came to me and asked "what's your wifi password?"
I was shocked and my son was disappointed.
I put my foot down and said no digital devices for at least an hour and 1/2 to which the 2 friends basically sat in the middle of my lounge and started saying "I'm BORED! Your apartment is so BORING!"
(Ask anyone who's been to my place and they'll tell you it's a fantasy world of Transformers, lego, board games, art and craft and books... a couple of our friends children and my son's schoolmates NEVER want to leave when it's time for them to go...)
My son tried for 20 minutes to get the boys to play with him. I even offered to take them to one of the local outdoor playgrounds to run around. My offer was rejected with "We never do that. No one likes going outside in HONG KONG. That's stupid. We only play iPad!"
Eventually after 45 minutes of their stubbornness I relented and said they could use digital devices but no wifi until after lunch purely because they were making my son miserable and I hoped they would interact with one another even if it was comparing results on games.
Ironically my son got bored of playing on the iPad about 30 minutes later and ended up going off to play Transformers in his room on his own because he thought that was "more fun". The other 2 sat on the floor playing on their iPads not interacting at all aside from when I gave them lunch.
At the end of their visit I asked their mums whether they ever played and told the mums their kids didn't want to go to a playground. The mums just shrugged and looked at me funny, smiled and took their kids home.

I think what irks me is (in my circles anyways) the parents who criticise me the most for "letting my son play too much" are the ones who have children that spend every waking non school hour on an ipad or some other digital device to the point if we are out at a family lunch the child will often demand they need to go home (and they will feign being sick in order to ensure they go home only to be perfectly well enough to sit on a computer as soon as they are through their front door for 5 hours straight)... I don't criticise the parents for their choices as I know we all have our own opinions and coping mechanisms and challenges but I'd rather have a son who isn't reliant on technology all the time and I wish parents here would respect that too. My kids do have digital devices but we have rules and limitations on use.

What are other parents perspective on toys, play and digital devices?