Quoting myself in the MP Hound review thread...

Quote Originally Posted by dirge View Post
I just got my Hound & promptly opened and transformed him. I'm not as impressed as I'd want to be for the price.

snip

I'm not dissatisfied; Hound will look GREAT alongside the other Autobot cars. But the earlier guys like Bluestreak & Sideswipe are far more elegant and sturdy for mine; and even NOW on eBay are cheaper than Hound. While the MPs aren't really designed with play in mind, this is far less playable than the earlier cars.
Admittedly, this is in a review thread... so it's where we should be weighing up positives and negatives. But the negatives are, IMO, quite nitpicky.

Fans who've been in this game for a long time (Gok, Griffin, Demonac, Sofaman, amongst others) will recall the early 2000s. Hasbro was releasing stuff like Beast Machines & just as it is now, Australia was skipping assortments. And deluxes, even back then, were $30 (that's 20 years ago!). Around that time, discussion would sometimes turn to "what is your ultimate wish from the Transformers toy line?" or something similar. And the overwhelming response was G1 characters with modern toy technology.

Fast forward to 2020. A whopping "American" 34 characters have now been released as Masterpieces... including licensed vehicle modes, a bunch of cassettes, all the seekers & multiple versions of popular characters.

Sure, MP Hound isn't perfect by Masterpiece standards. But I mean... I'd happily spend $200 on Hound all over again rather than spending $100 (in year 2000 money) on Supreme Cheetor - a toy which couldn't even STAND upright. If you'd had offered me Masterpiece Hound for $300 instead of the overpriced & frankly ungainly (with some exceptions) Beast Machines toys back in 2000, I'd have been awestruck that a relatively minor character had been produced to such a standard.

While I'll continue to critique MPs as I get them, I will still appreciate the opportunity to own the characters from my childhood with such amazing engineering. It sure beats chasing down uncommon toys like Battle Unicorn...

Do you feel that we've been spoiled by years of Masterpiece toys? Should we be unsatisfied with some of the Masterpieces that have released? Your thoughts?