I don't think it matters if they made a new character or used an old one.
Drift or some other random unused G1 character, they would have still been the same forced bad ass cliché character that would have been slammed. There were the same complaints about Perceptor when he suddenly became a super-dooper sharp shooter but because he had an established background in multiple continuities he avoided most of the flack.

Drift is pretty much the same as Hot Rod was in the original TF Movie. Typical stereotype, who appears out of nowhere and ends up doing all these bad ass kind of things to save the day.
Both were new characters, both were stereotypes. The only difference was that later on Rodimus Prime got more story for him, much more than a 1 shot comic, and hey people liked him. Rodimus also shows up in different continuities in various ways, shapes and characterisations.
End of the day, people like the guy, no fuss. Same goes for a lot of the movie cast.

Drift has had a main role in 1 series and made a few appearances here and there. Given time he might become a liked character as others interpret him.
But at the moment he has had 1 main role and it sucked. You got to give the character time to develop, and who knows, maybe in 20 years he will be a classic character