Quote Originally Posted by kup
However something else which I have also mentioned earlier that kept Beast Wars from supplanting G1 was its lack of overall variety even though the line as a whole was great. It was just Beasts, of various shapes and forms but that's it. If you weren't into Beast Transformers, then the line had nothing or very little to offer you.

To this date I also believe that the success of G1 is also due to its massive variety which pretty much had something for everyone. They had vehicles modes, Beast modes, gimmick toys, Sci-Fi alt modes, role play toys (Microchange molds) and on and on. Even during the Pretender years there was still a lot of variety as they also had realistic toys such as Headmaster Jnrs (Nightbeat, Siren, Hosehead), Powermasters as well as throwing in bizzare things like Beast Pretenders to keep fans who liked that sort of thing happy. This variety endured until it became a bit thin with late 89-1990 when the line was dominated by Micromasters and Actionmasters killing variety so if you were not into any of those, you were not intrested.
G1 never offered true beast modes - merely robotic and cybernetic animals. The closest were the Pretenders' shells... but they don't really count.

And to HasTak's credit, they did offer a good variety of animal modes, especially in the Beast Wars Neo line. And they gave us Cyber Beasts, Transmetals, Fuzors, Mutant Beasts, Transmetal IIs etc.