sticking so hard to the cartoon models continues to be a mistake
Agreed.
But what I find funny is that, to Hasbro's credit, they're really sticking to those models and the people who think they want cartoon accuracy suddenly realize that's not what they want when the slavish to the model toys don't reflect their inaccurate memories they've been holding onto for decades.
It's like SS '86 Megatron. Everyone lost their minds over his grey shins, forgetting that's what he looked like in the 80s animation model sheet.
When most fans say they want Sunbow accuracy they don't actually mean that. They want something accurate to the inaccurate memories they've been holding in their mind's eye since the 80s. Obviously Hasbro and Takara's designers can't read minds, they're gonna hear a desire for Sunbow accuracy and reference the model sheets.
It's just been amusing to see how many people vocal about this stuff don't actually remember what those look like.
Just imagine how much of the proportions they'll have to alter for a Ruination retool if they want to stick to cartoon accuracy for him as well, since his cartoon models were way more slender like the toy:
I donno, I think this works reasonably well.
Not my edit, someone posted it on the Discord.