As the Friedman ( tempura anyone ) interview said.... when executives signing the checks behave in a way of thinking they are doing something creative then things go wrong...Hasbro never knew what they had with Optimus, they never realized that it's more than just a toy to their buyers. But this is basically a good description of how decision making and how the buyers are viewed in the Hasbro top brass' mind.

We are just but numbers anyways in their accounting sheets, piechart percentages which is why their decision to kill Prime got passed. Yup, we have a new toy, don't worry we'll back it up in the cartoon promotions, the kids will love it as it says here in our survey 88% will so on and so forth.....only in the end yeah, um big mistake.... The "salvage" efforts in the voice over - "he shall return" in the newly mastered versions is more of a lesson learned the hard way after negative media feedback.

As for me personally, I guess since Prime never was my favourite character, him dying in the movie was kinda a , oh... ok, so now what? moment only for me. I was more upset that they killed off Starscream. Really. I was more upset when Cobra Commander mutated into a snake and had a petulant spoiled brat like Serpentor lead Cobra unopposed (or so it seemed for a while).
I looked at Prime's death at the time and actually thought... all that equipment they have around and there's a guy there (Perceptor) who supposedly has fixed a whole lot of really broken stuff before and now he can't even fix a side cut on Prime.... what a weak death IMO. He was barely even damaged, no torn off limbs or anything sputtering and leaking and yet a side cut kills him... weak.