Most post-G1 toy bios don't really tell you anything beyond what you can get from associated media, whereas during G1 the bios told us a lot. This was because the toy bios were the foundation for the Transformers mythos. One of the best things that Hasbro did was to commission Marvel Comics to create the back story and individual bios for the Transformers. And this included the characters' names, which really sound more like comic book names. Toy company execs just don't seem to have the same level of creativity as a comic writer.

Just compare the names of some of the early Transformers with that of the Machine Men/Gobots. The Machine Men started off with names like F-15 Man until Transformers came out and they tried to give them more catchy names like "Leader-1," but ultimately Tonka's toy staff (or possibly Hanna Barbera writers if it was them who came up with the new names, I don't know) just couldn't match what Marvel created.

F-15 Man/Leader-1 ←→ Optimus Prime
Cycle Man/Cy-Kill ←→ Megatron
Aero Man/Fi-Tor ←→ Starscream
Police Man/Hans Cuff ←→ Prowl
Racer Man/Turbo ←→ Sideswipe
Buggy Man/Buggy Man ←→ Beachcomber
Jeep Man/Geeper Creeper ←→ Hound
Porsche Man/Crasher ←→ Jazz
etc.

The other great thing about having good bios on the toys is that it allowed us to know who these characters were before they appeared in media. Because the toys came first, we would often see these figures in stores long before we saw them appear in a comic book, TV show etc. And some characters got very little if any exposure in media, and even if they did, it wasn't always accurate to who they actually were. Take Thundercracker for example. He's got one of the most interesting bios ever written for a Decepticon, yet for decades his character was never accurately portrayed by writers - not until only recently when IDW finally decided to do this character justice. But the fact is that IDW didn't even this character trait for Thundercracker, it's been part of his character since 1984... it's just that no other writer had ever bothered to tap into this before. Characters like Tailgate have also never been accurately portrayed in media either, even though his original toy persona is really fun to play around with! I remember when I first got Tailgate back in 1986, I'd pretend that he was driving around human towns and freaking out over the apparent enslavement of his fellow machines and was conflicted over why they had to fight to defend human slavers. Then there are plenty of characters who never had canonical appearances during the original G1 run (although many have since appeared in IDW) such as Hubcap.