No one's really arguing that Universe Ratchet isn't a better toy (or better value) than the RiD Ratchet are they? People are just saying they don't like that it that much, and they're also not disagreeing that it wasn't some clever engineering either. I'd say most people just prefer the Sunstreaker, Hound and Prowl moulds from around that time. Ironhide might have involved more wizardry, but it's ok if people don't like the end result as much.

Having said all that, I think my favourite engineering of that time was Cyclonus. He hides the entire front of the aircraft in his chest like it was never there, has no kibble or problems to speak of other than perhaps a gappy back of plane.

I don't know what the point of bringing up the G1 toy is, because that was a thing before the cartoon. Presumably they originally made the platform detach for play value not because of some inherent difficulty in turning that particular car into (at this time), any particular look for the robot. Likewise, Tow-Line was designed to be his own particular thing while paying a bit of homage to the G1 characters.

Universe Ratchet being the first time where their main goal was to approximate the G1 cartoon's robot look doesn't particularly suggest that it was all that challenging for them to do. And i'd argue, they could easily do a low budget Ratchet that had a similar transformation scheme to the MP, which transformed into a G1 style van. At the time and still to a degree now, the Universe line wasn't 100% in on G1 accuracy, hence the different car design compared to G1. They could have done it if they wanted to though. Think Titan Returns Hot Rod compared with the MP. MP Hot Rod basically has Titan Returns legs! I can even think of deluxes around that time that are arguably more complex in design/part count than some MPs, say WfC Optimus Prime.

Honestly, after seeing MP Megatron, I just don't think they would find any kind of "cartoon magic" transformation all that difficult to achieve. These guys have been designing transforming toys for years and routinely hit it out of the park on their first attempts in the MP line.