As I said in the Masterpiece design thread, I think we've shifts in designers over the years, which means what was considered to be the "masterpiece style" under one designer gets reimagined under another.

From what I've been able to gather (and happy to be corrected) the designers have been:
MP-1 to MP-9 (ex MP-5 and the MP-4 trailer) - Hironori Kobayashi
MP-5 (and MP-4 trailer) - Hisashi Yuki (in 6 days!)

MP-10 to MP-23 - Shogo Hasui (with Hironori Kobayashi finishing Ultra Magnus and doing the initial Starscream design) - this is what in my mind came to define "Masterpiece"

MP-24 - Hisashi Yuki
MP-25 to MP-30 (ex MP-28) - Hironori Kobayashi
MP-28 - Tomoya Miyake

MP-32 onwards - design team led by Hironori Kobayashi, with much of the main design appearing to be done by Yuki Ohshima

It's been MP-32 onwards (Inferno) which seems to have been the start of the accessory-heaving animation accurate Masterpiece, with Megatron being a complex design-heavy figure, with a more complicated engineering to achieve the desired accuracies. I think we then saw a shift in engineering with BW Dinobot to a panel-flipping kibble-hiding animation accuracy which has bled into some of the other recent designs including Hound, Bumblebee, Optimus and Sunstreaker.

Greater complexity leads to finer tolerances, which can lead to greater costs and more potential breakage.


I think we're spoiled if we were to say we wish we didn't have them at all. But I think it is reasonable to note that the Hasui Masterpieces appear to have been designed with a bit more simplicity in the engineering and robustness to the toy, which the newer ones do not, and that a desire to go back to the sturdier design is not an invalid request for something that is being sold at a significant price point.