Armada pre-dominantly came out in 2003 (some figures may have hit North America in December 2002 but it's chiefly 2003). 2000 was still Beast Machines for Hasbro, including the Battle For The Spark sub line.
As for the post-Beast Machines line... *shudder* Hasbro seriously pi$$-farted around when it came to what they wanted to do after Beast Machines. In late January or early February of 2001 I specifically asked what Hasbro were planning on releasing for that year and whether or not they had any plans to release Car Robot. I was told that they were definitely not planning on bringing over Car Robot and that they would be releasing a new original line. I wasn't given much more details beyond that.
Then a few weeks later at the New York FAO Schwarz Toy Fair Hasbro announced "Robots In Disguise" which of course was Car Robot repackaged! And Hasbro didn't even have any toys at their booth, they just had cardboard mock-ups. Now, considering what I was told a few weeks before that I strongly suspect that RiD was a last minute decision when they realised that they'd been sitting on their collective behinds with no real idea as to what they were going to do with TFs until they realised that they had to make an announcement at the Fair. (-_-) So I guessed that RiD would buy Hasbro another year to work on releasing the afore promised new toyline in 2002. Then came 2002 and nope... no new line. RiD got dragged along with lots more repaints... 2002 was the "drought" year where neither Hasbro nor Takara gave us any new lines. (-_-) *sigh* So it was only at the end of 2002 that we heard of Transformers Armada/Micron Legend - and I have to say that after a 2 year wait it was kinda lacklustre. (-_-) I was picking up toys like Armada Scavenger in early 2003 and thinking, "I waited 2 years for this?!?" :/
Btw, does anyone else think that TM2 Megatron kinda looks like a Bomberman Biidaman toy? ;p
(yeah, I know why that ball is there, but it still looks really silly)
P.S.: According to TF wiki these are toys designed by Archer:
Beast Wars
* Transmetal 2 Dinobot
* Transmetal 2 Iguanus
* Transmetal 2 Megatron
* Optimus Minor
Armada
* Hot Shot
* Megatron
* Starscream
* Thrust
* Cyclonus
* Unicron
* Many, many Mini-Cons
Energon
* Signal Flare
* Early Scorponok concept
