That is interessting for a noob like me. I do remember seeing Ironhide in a Kmart somewhere & thinking to myself "thats not f**king Ironhide" being that I grew up on G1 & the cartoon. I did not collect at the time or anything but I wish I had grabbed every last one of them now!
I think 3rd party products have a place & it is up to the induvidual if they wish to buy them or not. I have no overriding loyalty to Hasbro but obviously I prefer to buy their product if available. My loyalty is to making my collection the best representation of the 84-86 Transformers I can so that it pleases me.
On the subject of 3rd party vendors at Botcon I completely understand Hasbros stance. It would be nice if they worked together to make the fans experience of their products as complete as it can be but that is wishful thinking at best .
I may be wrong in my assumption but a 3rd party product enhances a existing Hasbro line or figure & a KO is a straight rip off of a already released product?