And, from watching a video of a SDCC panel where they first announced and showed off parts those DVDs, it seems the people in charge at Hasbro at the time had a pretty low opinion of the JG1 cartoons on their own, and may have thought that all the changes made to the subtitle scripts were "improvements".
I think there's truth to that. Not saying James Roberts = Hasbro but he was one of the major writers on the comics for a good stretch of time and his stuff needed to be cleared.
I bring that up because he seemed genuinely shocked that there were Western fans upset with his depiction of Star Sabre as a religious fanatic war criminal rather than the heroic character he was in Victory. Like he wasn't upset at people not liking his take so much that he was surprised that there were Westerners who cared about Star Sabre's original characterization.
And you have to think he sent his plans into Hasbro, they probably went "no one's gonna care what you do with this Japanese only character" and he assumed that was the truth.
Then you fast forward to the HasLab campaign for Star Sabre and Victory Leo and Hasbro declared that it was the first time that Japanese characters had been brought over to the West, which was just emphatically not true.
So it paints the picture of Hasbro on the whole being shocked that their customers and fans not only know about Japanese only shows and characters but like them.
Then again Hasbro is continuously shocked when it's shown fans like Beast Wars, so what hope do Victory and Masterforce have, really?