I love reading these posts of yours. We have to be fairly close in age, since you remember watching Optimus bite it on the big screen the way I do, but I love your insights about the characters and how you've absorbed different lessons from them. You've got me wanting to do my own post about this sort of thing.

Just out of curiosity, did you ever read any of the Transformers comics published by Marvel in the 80's and 90's? Your love of Optimus Prime, Hot Rod, and Ultra Magnus would, I believe, be well-served by some of the later stories (especially towards the end of the run when Unicron shows up in the comics' timeline). :)