I can quote
TFTM 1986 line by line, I know more about Transformers than most diehard nerds, and have every comic they've ever published and every TF episode they've ever produced including all Japanese shows...and IMO
Transformers is incredible crap.
I've loved the show since it's inception, and loved the comics just as much, but it amuses me how many fans still think it's this untapped resource for incredible science fiction

. It really is not. Our shining moment as
Transformers fans is probably "The Adgenda" or "Code of Hero" (Dinobot valiantly sacrificing himself), before that it might have been
TFTM.
In it's day
TFTM was critically panned, even moreso than Bay's first attempt. It's marketing was a**, and it barely stayed in theaters. It's plot is full of holes so large that Unicron could drive his family through them, and the dialogue is choppy and full of exposition. I'd venture to say if you weren't a kid, like myself, who grew up in the eighties you'd find it woefully bad because the nostalgia factor is all that it has (in spades).
IMO
Transformers is hardly good enough to make a good movie out of it. I think Bay probably squeezed about 80% of the properties potential. I mean look at what he has done. He's done a bang up job of fusing the mythos into the story. He's got robots that can teleport, he's done scenes on Cybertron, and he's included the allspark (a running theme through four of their cartoons). He's also included the Matrix, made reference to the Pretenders, and brought back many G1 voice actors. In this newest movie he's even bringing in Sentinel Prime! You can accuse Bay of many things, but leaving out mythos!?!? Not paying attention to the source material?!?!? He's done a superb job of that.
Too many Human scenes?
Transformers has usually linked themselves to our world with human characters, strong ones, that hogged a ton of screen time. Spike Witwicky frequently was the star of G1 episodes and issues.
What he's done poorly is balancing comedy and action. This is no surprise. The only movie he ever did a good job of that was
The Rock.
I think Bay does a lot of things wrong, but I will give him props for completing a franchise even if it wasn't the next
Star Wars. The other side of this coin is if you want a reboot on the movies, you'll probably get one and no one will care amongst the fan community. Transformers can ALWAYS be rebooted. They've done it like clockwork since it was created. Before it was 1990 they had four, count them, four divergent timelines. So when Bay's finished almost anyone can do a new series or series of movies.