The thing with Arcee though is that in Transformers The Movie and Season 3 (or TF 2010 as it was called in Japan) Arcee was shown to be an active warrior and not a submissive female "OL" (office lady). So even putting aside any cultural bias, it's just an INCONSISTENT portrayal of that character. If the G1 cartoon were a role playing game and, the dungeon master would deduct experience points off the person playing Arcee in the Headmasters for making her act out of character!

This is different from say other female TFs in Japanese G1 like Esmeral and Lyzak who are arguably even MORE stereotypically submissive females (they're literally stay-at-home mums nursing juvenile Decepticons -- at least Arcee still serves aboard a battleship in The Headmasters even if she's not an active combatant); because regardless of whether people think these Transformers have been portrayed in a sexist way or not, at least they've been consistent.

The same thing happened with Carly in The Headmasters too -- when she was younger she was a pro-active risk taker, showing just as much courage as Spike... but then in The Headmaster she just dotes over Daniel. Heck, when it came down to a choice between sending Carly or Daniel to save the day -- they chose Daniel. They chose a child over an adult with experience in fighting Decepticons and what not... most likely because she's "only" a woman.

I know there are plenty of implausible things in The Headmasters... I do consider it the weakest of the Japanese G1 series -- but there are plenty of implausible things in the Rebirth too. The main problem I have with the Rebirth is that everything was too rushed. I know that it's because David Wise originally wrote it as a 5 episode story then at the last minute Hasbro told him to wittle it down to a 3 episode story and he HAD to showcase virtually that entire year's worth of toys in it ... I don't blame Wise for it really - even HE didn't like having to cut his story down. But unfortunately the end result was that yeah -- a lot of things are just rushed and we see a lot of "hi then bye" appearances of characters. Sixshot is a good example of this - I quite like him in The Headmasters where he did get more character development. Was it the best character development ever? Probably not, but at least he got some development! How much character development did Sixshot get in The Rebirth? Sweet bugger all.

Now I'm not saying that I love everything about The Headmasters or that I hate everything about The Rebirth - there are things that I like and dislike in both.
e.g.:
Some things I dislike about The Headmasters:
+ Death of Ultra Magnus: one of the single most crappiest fight scenes I've ever seen. Magnus totally deserved a better death than that.
+ Inconsistent characterisation of Arcee.
+ Too much Daniel and Wheelie (but at least Wheelie doesn't talk in stupid rhymes and Daniel never became a Headmaster)
...etc.

And there are some things I like about The Rebirth, e.g.:
+ I like how they gave the Nebulans green skin and some different facial characteristics to distinguish them from humans. In the G1 comics they all looked human - almost all (except one) like Caucasian humans too. Erm... right. At least the cartoon made them look more alien. Although Zarak is awfully buff for a cripple who supposedly has no use of his body... (do they take steroids just to look hot?)
+ Cerebros' pacifism was interesting. The fact that they even made him a sentient Autobot was interesting (since in the comics he was nothing more than a drone to help Galen/Spike bond with Fortress Maximus Mark II).
+ Showing us the duality of the Transformers and their Nebulan/human partners - talking and working with (and sometimes against) each other. Even in the comics it was often one or the other personality who dominated, and in The Headmasters the Transtectors have no independent will. In The Rebirth it actually feels like a partnership.

So yeah, there are things I like and dislike with both series, but on the whole I much prefer The Headmasters.

P.S.: I first saw The Rebirth in late 1987 or early 1988... and I first saw Japanese G1 around 1990-91 (albeit in the horrific English dub - I first saw The Headmasters in Japanese in 1998) -- so at the time that I first saw these series I young enough to not be scrutinising either series as much as I do now as an adult. And I remember after watching Japanese G1 thinking to myself that it looked a lot better than The Rebirth.