That still absolutely is not true. I was born in 1989, meaning by the time I was cognitive, TF would have been well and truly off store shelves by the time I was old enough to ask for toys--and indeed, the only TFs I had during my childhood (pre-G2) were secondhand ones found at yard sales and flea markets, largely by my parents. (Most of them, it turns out, were Gobots, with only a Wheelie, Cosmos and PM Prime being my only "real" G1 TFs.) Even then, the only G2 toy I ever got was G2 Bonecrusher, who I lost everything but his drill and fist. (That includes the figure.)At this point the only real reason to get them is for the nostalgia. And if you weren't around for that, then they really have no meaning or draw.
In other words, I cannot have nostalgia for G1 because I didn't live through it. And yet, I have an appreciation for the Diaclone toys because they were feats of engineering, and, in fact, sometimes because they don't match up to their media portrayals. To Dom, that probably makes zero sense, but to me, these represent a different time for the brand where experimentation was rampant and damn near anything could happen. (It is probably this same sense that makes me appreciate the Euro G1.5 and G2 colour schemes.) It's 'different' from the norm.
When you see Optimus Prime on the cartoon, that's--essentially--the Optimus Prime everybody knows. Both Masterpiece Primes are largely modeled after his cartoon model. The character sheets for the Marvel Comics were based on him. Even IDW's Optimus Prime is largely based on that design (with a few changes). But the G1 toy is almost completely different, with his clear windshield, gaping forearm holes for his wheel wells, dark-blue-to-the-point-that-it's-almost-purple legs and head, faceplate vents, yellow eyes, rubsign on top of the cab...so much of it is stuff that simply gets lost in translations for years that other Optimus Primes simply do not have.
For me, that's what it is. The Diaclone toys are a fascinating look at the actual toy models that inspired the cartoon, comic books, and future toys that we all know and love, but in many cases they're so vastly different. It's like reading the early first draft screenplay to Alien, or seeing a rough cut of Blade Runner, or reading the novel of Jurassic Park. It's like Terminator comic books that were produced before Terminator 2 came out. It's something that's a little different from the normal, accepted, "canonical" approach we see these days.
Now, we see Optimus Prime in the movie, and we buy the toy, and we play the video game, and that all matches up (for the most part). We see Prime Wheeljack on the cartoon, and the toy looks about the same. We almost never see these kind of radical departures in TF these days, but back then, the brand was full of them--and I want to celebrate that.
