The Seekers may have experienced mould degradation between TFC and Encore. Encore Bruticus would be the worst case of a mould degraded reissue IMO (they really should have reissued that toy back in 2000 - but I guess reissues had just started then and maybe Takara weren't too sure if there would be sufficient demand for Bruticus at the time?). But while the Devastator mould may not have been over-used (well, it hasn't been used since 1993), could the mould have deteriorated through the passage of time?

I'm pretty happy with Encore - the only set I was really disappointed with was Bruticus (but not surprising given the history of that mould). If I want to see/handle Devastator in his original colours and plastic quality, I'll handle my original G1. But to me, the reissues will be my "play set." Getting a MISB reissue to play with would be cheaper and easier than getting an original 1985 G1 MISB Devastator gift set... I imagine that the latter would be so expensive than even if I did buy it, I probably wouldn't want to play around with it. So for me, getting the reissue suits me fine.