Hard to say. Most of the errors like that showed up in the first batch of season two, which hadn't yet introduced the new characters for the most part. You didn't have too many examples of a lot of these characters (Red Alert and Sideswipe, Prowl and Smokescreen) being together as the show switch to the 1985 toys after that batch.Hound wrote:I was thinking that myself. I imagine they took a look at just the sheer magnitude of errors they got in that first season and decided that the new toys reusing molds needed to have distinct character designs so as to avoid that.
I know that HASBRO wanted the new toys to be more distinct from the old ones in order to sell them, so they might have figured out that 'Starscream toy #4' wasn't going to sell as well as 'Ramjet'. Tough call, and sadly some of the principals in those decisions are no longer with us.
As for GI Joe getting more love, I think it was a combination of a few factors. Hasbro was more laid back with it, and not as strongly dictating the exact toys to sell on any exact episode (look at the G1 writer's bible, it's frackin' scary how the orders came down). I suppose having the 'suits' come in an say 'introduce 12 new characters this episode - we don't care how, just sell them' would be a bit of a pisser. Also, GI Joe came first, and so Transformers was kind of taking time and effort AWAY from their existing project. Again, tough call...