You know, you can have a good cartoon show and a good toy commercial rolled up in one, the Original G1 Transformers and GI Joe cartoon series proved that. By the way, DVD Boxsets of these two series are selling fairly well right now.
It is the political correctness in some of these cartoons that most of us don't like.
By the way, see my post (27) for more on the subject.
I recall being struck by the serial nature of Transformers. It was almost like a soap opera. Things changed from episode to episode and sometimes changed in a very big way. Most cartoons end and the next episode acts like the previous one never happened. You had to watch all the episodes of Transformers to know what was going on. Starscream was an interesting character and his journey through the show was always changing. When he was exiled and then created the WW2 Combaticons who then rebelled against Starscream, that whole thing just blew my mind as a kid. I couldn't believe the writers were working so hard on the storylines. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen in a cartoon. This whole huge story arc-- and Transformers did this all the time.