Post by DeathsaurasHere's my 2 cents.
I always felt it was the TF writers revenge for killing off so many
Transformers in the 1986 movie.
The TF Writers got attached to the 1984 & 1985 transformers. the
writters made both season 3 leaders losers/incompetent to get even.
Except Flint Dille worked heavily on the Movie script (he's credited as
Story Consultant) and wrote Five Faces of Darkness which sets up the
Season 3 leadership dynamics.
I think it's fairly obvious that what they were trying to do was to
create something completely different from the old leadership dynamics.
So Optimus Prime, the heroic icon and paragon of All That Is Good And
Right, became replaced by Rodimus Prime, a flawed hero who struggled
with the responsibility of leadership and actually had room for
character development--somebody for the kids to identify with.
Megatron, a respectable but generic villain, became Galvatron, a
literal psychopath. Instead of Starscream trying constantly to
undermine the Decepticon leader, we have Cyclonus who is doing his best
to shore Galvatron up and compensate for his more irrational moments.
I'm not entirely sure that the attempt at a different kind of villain
was successful with Galvatron (although I do love the loon), but I've
always found Rodimus a lot more palatable than Optimus Prime's brand of
hero.
Velvet Glove (both Autobot Leaders were benevolent dictators when you
get down to it, but at least the writers allowed the Autobots to
question Rodimus Prime's orders on a regular basis).