Besides the level scheme, absolute transition strengths between excited states yield fundamental information on nuclear structure and can be determined from level lifetimes. The recoil distance Doppler-shift (RDDS) technique is very valuable for the measurement of lifetimes in the picosecond range. During the last years, our group constructed several very compact plunger devices for RDDS experiments with 7-ray spectrometers coupled to charged particle detector arrays situated in the target chamber, and with dedicated setups for multinucleon transfer reactions where the plunger must be placed at the grazing angle of the reaction. Recent investigations have addressed the evolution of nuclear structure in neutron-deficient nuclei in the A = 170 mass region from yrast B(E2) values and are discussed in this article. For these investigations very small B-4/2 = B(E2; 4(1)(+) 2(1)(+) )/B(E2; 2(1)(+) 0(1)(+) ) ratios are of particular interest, which cannot be explained with standard collective models and which are not expected from the actual level schemes nor this far from closed shells. Here, we present our new work on W-168, Pt-172, and 176Pt, focus on this B(E2) anomaly, and include B(E2) values between higher yrast states for which experimental data have been sparse.