Hot Rod in the Animated Movies

Hot rod is the character that everyone thought bumblebee should have been in the first movie. But they just made him I mean the main mama lamby eenie for some reason which is already a bad start Correct me if i'm wrong because again I'm not super plugged into transformers personally. Like g1 transformer fans really wouldn't give a shit about like they're not thrilled when they're all bad but it's like whatever who cares people care about hot rod as he's the main character of the animated movie.