Changing things up a bit, I've noticed a pattern that tends to happen virtually every time we get a Transformers cartoon that's meant to be a sequel to its immediate predecessor: The fans criticize it for not being faithful enough to said immediate predecessor.
Beast Machines, Cybertron, Go!, RID 2015, even The Headmasters. About the only sequel series to avoid getting this kind of criticism was Energon (but that had a whole bunch of
other criticisms to bear, but I digress).
In my experience, the critics who chastise the aforementioned sequels for the aforementioned reasons of unfaithfulness seem more like they were expecting the sequels to just be "the next season" of the sequels' predecessors, rather than allowing the sequels to be their own thing like they always try and want to be. In this regard, perhaps the entire notion of these series being "sequels" is a sweeping misnomer, in that they are merely a later addition to their respective continuities' timelines, but aren't necessarily meant to be an inherent, genuine continuation of the stories told by the preceding series.
Examine, for instance, the Masterforce and Victory cartoons. Both have been called the "second sequel" and "third sequel" to the G1 cartoon, respectively, but each has very little to actually relate to the G1 cartoon. All three shows (as well as The Headmasters) are accepted as existing in the same Japanese cartoon timeline, but Masterforce and Victory are, in essence, so very far detached from the G1 cartoon, isolating themselves off in their own little corners of the timeline, that they both could really stand on their own without the G1 cartoon in the same way that a lot of people prefer to separate the Cybertron cartoon from Armada and Energon. Masterforce even lacks all the futuristic stuff that G1 season 3 and The Headmasters were full of, presenting itself as more closely resembling 1980s Earth, much like how Cybertron resembled present-day Earth rather than having any of the futuristic-looking stuff that Energon had.
Therefore, why are more people willing to view Masterforce and Victory, which have barely any ties to the G1 cartoon, as acceptable successors to the G1 cartoon, but not the same for Cybertron as a successor to Armada and Energon? If it's a matter of how long after the G1 cartoon Masterforce and Victory took place that helps them make sense in people's eyes, Cybertron was set a full
decade after Energon, while Masterforce was set roughly around that same amount of years after G1 (considering how the Japanese version of season 3 took place in 2010 instead of 2006) and Victory being in 2025 would put it not too far off from when Masterforce itself was set.
And the aforementioned lack of futuristic Earth stuff in both Masterforce and Cybertron can be easily chalked up to the same reasoning, that the futuristic stuff seen in G1 season 3/The Headmasters and Energon weren't as globally ubiquitous as they appeared to be.
For G1 season 3 and The Headmasters, a LOT of time was spent in both shows that took place in the U.S., which is where we saw more futuristic tech than not, what with Autobot City and the EDC both being based in that country. Whereas episodes of each that took the characters to other countries showed that there were still parts of the world that did not have all the same future tech that America had, like this village in the Netherlands seen in "The Ultimate Weapon", for instance:
Or this vast undeveloped region of Japan from "The Burden Hardest to Bear":
Or, for a The Headmasters example, this village in Peru:
As far as Energon's futuristic stuff went, upon actual reflection of the settings that show took place in, not once did that show ever take place on Earth in a normal, non-Autobot-affiliated Earth city. Every single location set on Earth in that show was confined to either the Cybertron Cities or to remote, uninhabited sections of the planet, devoid of any human populaces. Therefore, all of the futuristic stuff seen on Earth in that show was only seen within the Cybertron Cities, which were all located within isolated regions of the planet that were all completely cut off from any civilian cities. Meaning that we never got to see what the rest of the populated world in that show looked like outside of the Cybertron Cities, doubly meaning that we have no way to tell if there was any future tech on Earth in the outside world's civilian population centers.
Therefore, these situations open to door for the rest of the world not needing to be as high-tech as either the U.S. in G1 season 3/The Headmasters or the Cybertron Cities in Energon, and thus provides a reasonable out for both Masterforce and Cybertron not having a futuristic-looking Earth.
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every once in a while, but it did not ruin the show. To me it is an inferior sequel, but certainly not the worst TF series of all time.
. The tonal change was a little jarring at first, but I've come to accept it. I can respect how this fits into the aligned continuity. Rescue Bots is a whole other situation. I just kind of see this as being told from a small child's perspective, which is what it was intended for. I mean I would not expect to see Megatron or Unicron on Rescue Bots, nor would I expect to see Mr. Pettypaws on TF Prime. Rid15 is kind of a neutral ground however where anything can happen. 
