Agreed - great review, thanks for posting Nick.
I have to pace myself this year and I'm holding off on getting one of these to open. I wonder if it isn't worth waiting a bit to see if there are some deeper discounts on Amazon in the future. I hate to say that, because I know we've all been looking forward to playsets, but I would have been satisfied with just a straight-up playset, not one that was a transformer - especially since the review seems to indicate it's the fact that it transforms is what causes it so much problems.