As Hursticon said, the original Ironhide and Ratchet did have heads -- they were the stickers on the seats. And he's also right about early G1 art being more toy accurate... it was only later on that they changed it to what became the standard way of drawing Ratchet and Ironhide with more visible heads. The BotCon Japan exclusive comic "Cybertron Chronicles" (by Ichikawa Hirofumi) featured toy-accurate art.

The reason why their heads are like that, for those who may not know, is because in the original Diaclone toy line where they originated from, Ironhide and Ratchet weren't so much piloted "mecha" in the sense that most of the other Diaclones were, but more like big power armours (more like what Ripley used in Aliens)... they were operated by Diaclone pilots as ancillary mecha for the main fighting mecha -- carrying munitions and what not for the others. Here is what "Ironhide" originally looked like piloted by Diaclones.

Here's a comparison between G1 Ironhide and Movie Ironhide's faces:


Same comparison with Ratchet


Comparison between G1 Ironhide and Ichikawa's toy-accurate art:


Toy-accurate art used in early G1:
http://tfwiki.net/w2/images2/3/33/Ratchetg1first.jpg
http://tfwiki.net/w2/images2/e/e3/Ir...appearance.jpg

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I have original G1 and Encore reissue Ironhide and Ratchet (as well as Rescue Ratchet and Protect Ironhide) -- I don't use the cardboard heads... they look silly IMO (heads are too high and the shoulders end up sitting too low). But like Paulbot, the original heads don't bother me as that's what I grew up with. And quite frankly, the toys came first so they're more accurate anyway.

But I did try the heads on when I first got my Encores (and didn't like it) -- but here's what they look like with the heads on: