Well, I picked up the two Deluxe 2-packs a couple of days ago, though if I had to do it over again I think I would have snagged Bruticus, too. I'm worried about him... I've seen pictures of Wrecker Hook and Indy Heat before, but it's quite a different thing altogether to hold these toys in my hands. I am utterly *amazed* at what a difference all the extra paint operations can make. I thought the Machine Wars toys were pretty neat (I've always been a fan of the auto-transform feature), but they're rather plain. Prowl, Mirage, Hoist...they're pretty much all one color, and pretty boring. I *love* the RiD versions, though. I love the metallic paint on Skid-Z, the little vaccum metalized bit on his forehead, the translucent eyes...I love the vacuum metalized front grill on Tow-Line, the painted fists and fenders and smokestacks and fog horns and oil tanks...lovely. This may not go in the RiD FAQ since it's more of a reflection of the changes made from Machine Wars to Car Robots, not the changes made from Car Robots to RiD like I've been documenting, but...mold changes. There are some. I find it interesting. Tow-Line: The peg that holds his legs together in vehicle mode is bigger than Hoist/Hubcap's. The shape of his hook was changed, with the inside corners filled in (presumably to make it less fragile). One very minor production change that I think is really neat is that his auto-transform spring is galvanized, where the Machine Wars version was not. All this really means is that it's shiny and won't rust as easily, but it's still a neat little change. Makes me happy. Skid-Z: The bar that holds his spoiler in place is actually more narrow than Mirage/Prowl, meaning he's *more* fragile. (I see no reason to modify the toy, though. The hook holds a lot better than the Machine Wars versions ever did. My Machine Wars Prowl thinks he's a Duocon. Touch him and he springs up.) I'm thinking the reason this was done was to give the bar assembly more clearance inside the little groove that it sits in, but it was still a bad idea. The shape of the hole inside his leg that holds his gun peg was changed, too. My only complaint about Skid-Z is that the centers of his front wheels should have been vacuum metalized to emulate the bolts that hold his rear wheels in place. Windsheer: I got a badly flawed toy. His gears are stripped and he doesn't want to auto-transform at all. I assume this isn't normally the case with the mold. Anyway, Megatron/Megaplex have gun-peg holes in each of their legs, but Windsheer's only got the hole in his right leg. They also filled in the ejector pin holes inside his front air intakes. Skyfire: I'm not sure if this was the case with everybody else's Machine Wars toys, but my Skywarp and Thundercracker toys don't transform all the way. The nose of their cockpits always jut out a little bit in robot mode. You *can* push them in all the way, but the spring makes 'em stick out again. Maybe they were just assembled wrong, but I don't want to strip their gears trying to correct it. Anyway, Skyfire looks much better in robot mode since all his parts mate the way they're supposed to. (This also means that his fuselage isn't quite as compact as Thundercracker/Skywarp in jet mode, but no complaints there.) Also, his weapon parts will fit in either of his legs, unlike Thunder/Sky, who have "O" shaped holes for the gun peg in their left legs, and "D" shaped holes in the right leg (just for decoration, I guess). My Skyfire toy is botched, too. It looks like somebody slapped too much paint on his right wing...the purple stripe is smudged, and there's actually a *fingerprint* permanently embedded in the paint. How unprofessional! That said, I really love Skyfire's colors. Call me a purist, but this is what a Decepticon is *supposed* to look like. Orange cockpit, lots of purple...yeah. :)