I saw a lot of buildings being demolished in China when I was there 8 years ago-- brick by brick, with the bricks being saved. I think it might depend what materials we're talking about when trying to determine their recycle value. And I don't recall anyone wanting to rebuild with the same materials on the same site, but maybe I missed that part.
I grew up in a suburb/rural setting, and thought that was the kind of house I would want to live in as an adult. But I live in a house like that now, and I still have noisy neighbors (it's amazing how far bass tones carry, even through woods) and I have no public transportation. Our choices were constrained in the last move when one deal fell through after we'd started the kids in that school district. We were trying to buy a prefab house in a community-owned development. I'm still rather sorry that deal didn't go through.
As far as individuating houses while still minimizing construction costs and resource use, it's amazing what can be done with panel construction these days.
