I finally found one the morning that a hurricane was due to come through. Had been stalking TRU for weeks without luck. I skipped the Japanese release because why did I need a smaller Prime? But the US release hit the sweet spot on price, and once I got it in my hands... I understood. Which then lead to going back and picking up Sideswipe and Alert (at inflated prices) and the rest is history.

Agreed on the current state of things. The mainline stuff is a much better bang for your buck. Hell, I've even said more than once that if I had to do it over again, I'd ditch MP and go legends scale. Third parties swooped in and made some amazing toys at much smaller scales. But since I was all-in on MP, I stuck with it.