Low quality?!?!

No sir! Go-bots were low quality! Transformers were solidly made: they didn't break easily, their transformations were complex enough to be interesting, and all their forms usually looked like what they were supposed to: a robot, a car, or whatever. (One notable exception was Megatron's robot form. What the fuck was that???)

Ratchet/Ironhide were supreme laziness. Didn't look a thing like them, and they just threw on a sticker for their face.

Their toys were adapted (along with the rest of the original figures) from japanese toys that were piloted mechs, not humanoid characters, so there's a chair for the pilot behind the windscreen (and thats where the face sticker went for the transformers version instead). True, probably the worst design of the 84 line, but that came first, not the cartoon model. The cartoon model for Ironhide and Ratchet was probably just the most dramatic case of them simplifying/humanizing the toys to make them a little easier to characterize on screen.

I still remember my preteen mind being absolutely blown away that they said "shit" in a cartoon. I miss being that naive and easily impressed.

On a related note: I've seen Weird Al perform "Dare to Be Stupid" live. A highlight of my adult existence to be sure.