Believe it or not, but people have been wanting smaller teams for awhile. THere WAS a backlash against the 100+ GI Joe team. It catered MORE to the original13 days tho new characters did get intro'd pretty quickly.

If you have good storytelling and good characterization, then a small team should work, right? But I suppose if the writers mess around with characters too much, then people won't like 'em and that will make the toyline suffer.

Tunnel Rat comes to mind. As an ARAH toy, he was awesome. In the movie, he was so-so. The Marvel comic, he didn't get much love. The DD comic version? Did he even show up??? The 2002+ v1 was ok. The v2 SUCKED (that'd be the VvV version). The S6 toy was ok. The S6 Cartoon Portrayal was pretty goofy. The S6 Comic protrayal was about the same as the cartoon.

At least Heavy Duty was portrayed as the dork he is and Duke was portrayed as the... well, whatever he is.