I personally don't own them and agree with you that they are little 'different'. But the cheetah actually looks like a cheetah, or more like a cheetah anyway, not some stocky housecat, though the bulk worked on the original Tigatron figure.
With the improvements of technology and design, if they gave new moulds a crack hopefully more of the robitics would be hidden and by the same token the robot modes would have less beast kibble.