Stickers have often been a cheap/lazy way to add additional detail to toys. Extra paint apps and sculpting are usually better ways of achieving greater aesthetic results. On the whole, stickers were generally phased out in 1996 with the advent of Beast Wars. BW gave us a new 'generation' of TF toys that relied more on detailed sculpting, paint/colour apps (including airbrushing on some toys) as well as tampographed insignias/decos on some toys (e.g. Transmetals). Stickers were fine for G1 and G2 - and indeed some G1/G2 reissues come with some tampographed decos/logos that were previously stickered. But by contemporary standards it seems antiquated.

The only toy in this line I'm interested in getting is Skywarp - cos he's Skywarp. But I'm gonna get him shipped to me w/ MP Sunstorm & Utd Artfire, so I won't have him in my hands for some time yet. I want a Deluxe Ratchet, but I'm hoping that Hasbro will release their version here. Or should I get a Takara Ratchet just in case HAS AU doesn't pull through? <rubs.chin>