I don't get the Michael Bay hate, as much as his movies aren't Oscar winning dramas they are still entertaining films and they've made the transformers franchise so much bigger than it was before 2007.

sure another director might have made movies that were more heavily G1 inspired, but those same movies might have bombed at the box office and transformers might have faded into comparative obscurity.

I'm excited to see who replaces him, how they manage infusing their own style into the designs of the transformers and the filming of the movies as a whole. I think too rapid a change will be jarring.
Who would I like to see do it, Jon Favreau. I think he would get it.

there are others but he's at the top of my list.