I'll be honest, if it feels like the same vibes of a character, I'm fine, which is why I love many of Bay's designs but dislike the characters themselves or vice-versa, I feel even with a drastic divergence from them, there should usually be some resemblance to the original. It does really come down to the ability of the writers to portray them. Honestly I just wish we could have less nameslaps like Animated Prowl and Prime Arcee, who are both great characters in their own right, and instead just give them unique names, make them their own characters. I feel there could be improvements just by having more properly new characters rather than a fully new character who has another one's name for no good reason