If possible, I prefer my TFs to be in scale. Prime and Megs are usually bigger than the other characters. So I like to display my ROTF Buster Prime with HA BB and Jazz. I tossed in a few small scouts to fill in the shelf, but thier scale is totally off. Breacher, Firetrap and Hubcap are great, but completely out of scale... Knockout, Trenchmouth and Deadlift are in better scale with my Leader Starscream, HA Baricade and Mindwipe... I am trying to pick the best mold of a character. Which usually means the larger class figure of a character. I'm really thinking about DOTM Ironhide. The leader class should be smaller than Buster Prime. Yet bigger than HA BB? Hmmm... If the scale fits, it's great. Like a scout bike or forklift... But it is looking harder and harder to do... I'm looking at you Wreck Gar...
i'm fairly OCD about scale. I generally won't buy a deluxe class car-former (or jet-former) out of principle, though there are exceptions. I love the recent scout class motorcycles but they don't fall into scale with anything else I have....I also buy certain toys for nostalgia...like the recent Jazz. I've probably got....3 scales i'm collecting. So a toy's scale will determine who he gets to be displayed with. Skullgrin will never hang out with Thunderwing, but he is allowed to pal around with Mindwipe....it saddens me but i can't help it.
I have to admit to hating deluxe cars. When compared to the Diaclones and Scout cars, they just look wrong. The fact that Classics Prowl is larger in bot mode than the Seekers just ticks me off no end. I know it shouldn't but it does. Still at least it saves me money. Even as a kid, the combiners really disappointed me. However, KO's have helped me rectify certain scale problems. Oversized Bruticus is the same size as Energon Omega Supreme and looks great towering over G1 Sideswipe and co. Onslaught is the same size as G1 Ultra Magnus (armoured form) in both modes. The oversized KO Robotmasters are nice too. Wingstun looks great with Acid Storm in both modes and their similar colour schemes make them a nice pair. He and Wrecker Hook are deluxe size. I recently got a Kabaya version of Classics Prowl that has his bot mode similar in size to a Scout though his car mode is a little bit smaller. Also have Flame, Gripper and Lightspeed in a similar size. I bought a Hot Rod repaint of Clocker a while back which looks nice with the G1 reissues. Despite my misgivings about Scale, I find I'm more lenient towards the Seekers. Maybe because the Classics are similar in bot mode to the G1's. Also, the large cockpits on the Titanium Seekers seem closer in scale to the G1 Seekers too.
scale(in the toy realm) is a ridiculous concept to me. Not even the G1 toys/Diaclone were completely faithful to scale. Like someone else touched on in this thread, a good deal of toys aren't in scale with each other, so there's no point in getting worked up about it.
I don't like ridiculous differences - such as deluxe Ironhide being smaller than deluxe Bee. I can't pose Ironhide with my other deluxes because it's just too jarring. He's with my separate Ironhide collection. But I don't mind minor differences. It usually depends on how I want to display my figures - I have one shelf with the movie Autobots, for example, only one of each character - and it's to scale as much as I can make it. My Human Alliance display is one that I want to be displayed to scale as much as possible as well.
I like my robots in same scale, as in. same height in robot mode, more or less. I do have optimus with jet fire combo and ultra magnus with FP armor on in my classic line and I find these look great.
Scale has never been consistent in TFs. Hell, look at the triple-changers. Not even in scale with themselves.
A good deal of toys arent in scale so therefore no toys need to be? Thats a weak argument..there are some toy lines out there that actually do take scale very seriously. Transformers have always thrown scale aside....to think a semi and a gun could translate to comparably sized faction leaders is pretty out there in fiction....though we all know that play came before plot. So you could say that its true to the classic TF spirit that toys aimed at kids dont need to be to scale...but damnit I need to see some element of scale on my collections!
did they take scale into consideration when designing the movie characters? it seems blackout, starscream, megatron, ironhide, brawl, and prime are all pretty huge. the cars were smaller. even jazz was smaller than bumblebee. maybe because his car is smaller than a camero. i love the shot where bumblebee picks up skids and mudflap and throws them. you can really seethe size difference there. bb is much bigger.