I'd say that at the time, as you seem to agree, FunPub and Hasbro's choice to release the remaining seekers as exclusives was the only way they were going to see the light of day.

Everything that unfortunately followed that (TT's exclusive release, Hasbro's delayed release) are all cascading effects of that one event, which to reinforce, was at the time, in the best interest of fans.

And I still stand firm in my belief Hasbro will never release Thundercracker using the Classics seeker mold in G1 colors.