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This was a really interesting thread to read. I was really into transformers as a kid, but around the time of DOTM I moved on to Gunpla and eventually got into collecting more anime robot figures from Macross, Eva, etc.
Because of that I never really learned any of the background development stuff that went on with Transformers, but it's interesting to read tidbits about it in this thread. Never knew about these guys named archer and warren and their role in the toylines or even really understood why certain figures were worse than others even when they were in the same class and show/movie. Or why the UT toys had a much more solid feel compared to more recent stuff.
The toyline that killed my interest in TF was AoE. the designs of the film were so bad, you couldn't really tell what they were supposed to turn into because they removed a lot of the vehicular traits from the robot mode. Which made it practically impossible to make figures for most of them (AoE Bumblebee still doesn't have a toy that can figure out that transformation iirc). Battle Blade Bumblebee was my favorite TF toy at the time so it was disappointment that the nex movies didn't have one that matched that quality.
Around the same time I noticed the other toylines like FoC were starting to feel really cheap, hollow, and had really lazy painting compared to classics.
