Realistic. I think even Cobra is better grounded to some level.

I do like many unrealistic offerings, but the problem was in later years, the unrealistic vehicles also became impractical and silly looking. Too many armored vehicles with glass canopies, overuse of the "splits in mulitple vehicles" gimmick, plus bad colors, weapons with no apparent ammo sources, missiles stuck to everything...in the 90's, vehicles seem built around gimmicks, like the gimmick came first. The Rat's crap, but it's just a shell for some stupid spinning blade launcher anyway. ATF fighters were jets built around water guns.

They overdid the Land Battleship concept that began with the HAVOC and peaked with the Rolling Thunder. They kept going with the Raider and the Avalanche and the Battle Wagon. All of which were over-armed, yet under armored with exposed crew and/or glass canopies. They sometimes seemed to be lacking enough crew to operate all ithe weapons (like the Avalanche). The Battle Wagon had an absurdly high profile. Of all of them, the Mean Dog is probably my favorite, and the closest to being "real", splitting feature aside.

Cobra had some of them, too. Sort of. The submarine tanks, which were too nautical in nature to go toe-to-toe with Joe land cruisers. Destro's Demon and Razorback come close, as does the Rage, but the Rage seems somewhat more down-to-earth in design, aside from too many tacked on weapons and an undersized turret. The Razorback's weapons seem limited compare to the mutiple guns and giant missiles of the Raider.

Cobra in general became too sea-oriented, maybe due to Cobra Island. From 1987 onward they got at least one new sea vehicle every year until 1991, while the only GI Joe sea items were repaints like Tiger Fish, Tiger Shark and Night force items. It felt a bit unbalanced.