Transformers itself probably played no small role in fostering that perception.
Power Rangers is in a grey area. Even ignoring it's production nature, the zords are roughly half the action focus. And even then, monsters don't always grow, so zords are not always needed.
Then where is my exosuit genre? Why was there nothing after the Exosquad?
A lack of power armor material is especially odd considering MCU Iron Man is still hot shit. Where the hell's my Bubblegum Crisis knockoff?
Western writers, as always, out of touch with the audience, no one is surprised.
Marvel went through that weird phase where they introduced a lot of armored girls too. A company that wasn't incompetent would have used that as an opportunity to create the western version of the Knight Sabers.
At least it seems like Pepper is getting a push, so that's something.
Also, I recognize Pepper and Riri, but who are the other two?
pepper sucks and her armor sucks
There are variety of stories. The issue is that all the stuff not involved with the war is aimed at a much younger audience.
From the look of things, Hasbro's plans are to get really young audiences with the non-war stuff. Get to the more action stuff for the older kids that either involves the war or is connected to it. Then, older teens and up get the more dramatic war or war-related stuff.
Do Transformers even count as mecha? I thought the genre was about giant robots you pilot, like Gundam or Jaegers. And is it true that Japan isn't really into sentient bots like TFs?
Transformers are alive. Who cares about robots that aren't alive? That's what put me off stuff like Gundam when I was a lad.