What has happened to cartoons?

[FS]

Transformers really had some of the best characters ever, and I don't mean their looks. Optimus Prime was this gritty leader who had a good 'heart' and all, but he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty and take on Decepticons in hands-on brawl. On the other side, Megatron managed to keep all the Decepticons in FEAR. Occasionally someone would try to slip something past him (mainly Starscream), but none would dare to openly cross him. Even though none of them really were dumb, or clumsy. Starscream was a snivelling coward, but he wasn't stupid. It's just completely different from any cartoon show I ever saw.

They managed to make Bumblebee/Goldbug look cool and tough. That's something not many people would be able to do.

I really need to get my hands on all of the old Transformers episodes. In my memory the episodes with Rodimus Prime and Galvatron were a little less than the originals, but one of the episodes that stuck with me the most is of that time: it's the one where the Autobots find Optimus Prime's "corpse" and re-activate it, only it's been secretly sabotaged by the Quintessons so that he's torn between good and evil (Rodimus tries to make him accept the Matrix back, but it hurts him to wear it). In the end, Optimus dies again. They don't dare to do stuff like that anymore today.