"Unimpressive toy"? I thought Bludgeon was one of the better Pretenders to come out of G1. Overall I think that the 1989 Pretenders were a notable improvement over the 1988 Pretenders. Gone are these spindly anorexic contortionists -- the '89 Pretenders looked more like proper Transformers (i.e. armoured mecha). And the alt modes weren't just folded up robots pretending to be vehicles -- they looked like what they were meant to be.

Bludgeon's alt mode is immediately identifiable and is unmistakably a tank. Even if you lose the accessories it still looks like an armoured vehicle. My first Pretender was Waverider, and in all honesty, I thought he was a starfighter. It was a birthday present, so I opened the toy and started playing with it before reading the bio and later learning that it's meant to be a submarine. But it always looked more like a little starfighter to me. Heck, when Waverider fought against Unicron on Cybertron we see him flying into battle! Sky High -- if you got the toy loose without any accessories, good luck trying to figure out what he's meant to be. Same with Iguanus and the notoriously horrid Gunrunner.

With the 1989 Pretenders you can tell what they're meant to be, even if you loose the accessories. Bludgeon would be a turret-less tank but you can still see the lower half with the armour and the treads etc. Octopunch would be a legless crab, Stranglehold a tail-less rhinoceros etc. While it would still really suck to lose these accessories, you can still make out what they're meant to be. Sure, the 1988 Pretenders had a few figures that contain enough self-contained parts that you can tell what they're meant to be, like Cloudburst or Metalhawk... but these toys were more of the exception rather than the rule. And they all have that generic transformation thing of fold the arms in and swing the legs back up. Contortionists in disguise. Bad disguise.

And yes, of course it was to allow these robots to squeeze into their Pretender shells. But 1989 improved the concept by making the robots smaller but in doing so, they didn't need to give them those stick-thin robot modes. They could make the robot modes look more like normal Transformers and allow them to fit into their shells by virtue of being compact rather than skinny. It even worked with some of the more classical G1 designs, as demonstrated by the Classic Pretenders. Pretender Starscream is undeniably an F15 Eagle and Pretender Bumblebee is clearly a VW Beetle etc.

The orange on Bludgeon's shell does look really silly though. It's always looked silly. We just accept it now because it's the original look of the character, but when this toy first came out I thought, "It's like Skeletor in a day-glow orange suit?" The overall sculpting with the samurai armour was cool, but orange?! Makes Bludgeon look like he's barracking for the Netherlands.