I've always been a realist until recently. I'm in the midst of some customizing on several vehicles including the RHINO, the IceSabre and several other of the recent additions.

The trouble I have now is that with the new Striker vehicles that the USMC started using, that once clear line between fact and scifi has been blurred big time. When I was a kid, the Awe Striker was the closest to real that I had. The Mauler looked a bit like the Abrams MBT, and the Tomahawk looked a lot like the Chinnok. But they were always stylized and limited my realist attitudes toward play.

Now companies like 21st Century Toys, Lanard, and Big Blue Toys are marketing vehicles closely based on the real thing. I have quite a few of these vehicles for the Joes and the other major world powers (Britain, Russia, Israel) but now find myself limited in Cobra/bad guy equipment. I also have some special gear coming up for my "First String" team.

Seems I can ramble on since everyone else is, don't want to feel left out afterall. Well my two cents is that when I first got into GI JOE as a kid I did like the unrealistic probably because I didn't really consider combat functionality. Now though being older as I am (or at last I think so) I prefer the more realistic vehicles because they were created to be more practical well most of the time. If vehicles were created based on other real vehicle designs then yes we would be seeing more practicality. Anyone remember that cruiser vehicle that had the launcher on it that could shoot that little blue glider. For me that had to be the pinnacle of the poorer designed vehicles as open driving positions like those were just way to exposed. So I voted for realistic vehicles.

What's so bad about open positions? It makes it a lot easier for Cobras to shoot the Joes! ;)

Realistic-ish
 

I put "realistic", but it's really not quite accurate. I, like many others, like my Joe vehicles to be pretty grounded in reality, but Cobra I can definitely see branching off into the more fantastic designs. The HISS tanks, the MAGGOT (looking past seperating the components), the MAMBA are all awesome examples of the "acceptable", yet unrealistic, vehicles. Cobra is unconventional and a lot of their power comes from being terrorists; their image is important because fear is their greatest weapon and I think that shows in their uniforms, armor, weapons and vehicles. The ROCC and the RHINO, however, on the Joe side of things, are definitely futuristic, but I wouldn't say they were unrealistic (think science-fiction here).