>>6229266I love CHUG, but they didn't all spot full articulation. At least, not until the ROTF-Era, because that's when Transformers seemed to get the most budget. It was also pre-worldwide petroleum shortage.
Lesse, Voyager Prime's my standard for points of articulation. Lacks ankles but otherwise fully articulated. Still, let's stick to Deluxes. Also, these are off the top of my head, so I might be getting details wrong.
- Bumblebee, no thigh swivels and I think no ankles, but otherwise adorable.
- Mirage, got hinged but not swivel wrists, his feet were sort of weak for support but good for posing. Weird neck. No thigh swivels either. But hyper expressive.
- Hot Rod, crap even by today's standards.
- Starscream, looks awesome and is still the definitive Deluxe Seeker to me. No thighs, no ankles and wrists are only hinged. Limited neck.
- Astrotrain, don't remember. Only that it wasn't hyper articulated and like many toys back then, had no ankles.
- Hound, no memory.
- Grimlock, again, hinged wrists due to articulation but no swivel. Feet are surprisingly balanced but no ankles.
Okay, so the above represent the molds for the first Classics. Then Bayformer 1 happened and now TFs go into a boom and we actually get a TF shortage. We get a lot of repainted Cybertron toys touted as movie toys. Then we got Animated.
Up to this point, TFs were still Cybertron-Era level in terms of articulation, which is to say, they typically have most of their points of articulation but tend to be missing one or two vital ones, especially thighs, biceps and wrist swivels. Very few have anything more than hinged ankles. Mirage's ball jointed feet qualify on a technicality but they're not very functional because they can't actually support much weight.
