My guess is that somebody bought BT Overdrive, realized he has issues with paint chipping and balance, bought ALT Windcharger, lost one of the convertible top pieces, swapped the guns, and returned BT Overdrive in Windcharger's box. Then you bought it. He ends up with an Overdrive that can stand without difficulty, has no paint chipping issues, has both top pieces, and has a non-neutered gun. You end up with a Windcharger that has balance issues, paint chipping issues, no long barrel on his gun, and only one top piece. On the plus side, BT Overdrive is a much better display piece than ALT Windcharger. You could possibly get a repro part for the gun barrel. The loss of one of the top pieces isn't that big a deal.
Although most of the BT figures were diecast, all had full body paintjobs, which almost non of the Alt versions had. There was often a bit of additional chrome present as well. Even if you don't count KP Prime and Rodimus (because of the different name and lack of die-cast) they still felt like part of the line and featured the better paint jobs. I've heard the paint chipping complaint a few times, but the only figure I've had this issue with is my red zoom zoom jazz (or what ever they called him). (and I got him off ebay, and despite being "MISB" I got the definite feeling that he'd been out of the box before, and possibly even disassembled by busy hands since a couple pieces initially were not snapped together properly and fell apart- but went back together for me and haven't been an issue since) Of course my figures are display pieces and get transformed once every 3-4 months (if that).
$820 dollars for a Binaltech? Some people have waaay to much money on their hands. I wanted BT-17 myself, mostly for the fact that Binaltechs are sorely lacking original Decepticon molds. And there are no Binaltech versions of Rumble or the newer Ravage either, which sucks. I think for the prices BT-17's are going for now, I'll just keep my BT-22 Convoy and call it a day.
BT Ravage would have been nice. But much to my surprise Alt Ravage actually has a very glossy finish on his black body. I think it's been buffed somehow instead of being an actual coat of paint, but either way it looks every bit as good as a painted bot in my eyes. I don't actually mind unpainted plastic when they chose the plastic carefully, they just usually don't. Mirage also has very little paint, but a fantastic choice of plastic.
In what way is Alternators better than Binaltech. IMO it's other way around. Plastic will always deteriorate faster than metal on the other hand metal can rust but at least it can be treatable.
