I personally think if Starscream and Megatron had similar color schemes to G1, there'd be less complaints from fanboys. The new Starscream is not that 'busy' of a design in robot form, but it has a standard (realistic) F-22 Raptor paint job instead of a ridiculous red-and-white-and-blue-and-yellow G1 paintjob that no real 'in disguise' F-15 Eagle would have unless it was at a friggin Air Show.
The color scheme used has alot to do with increasing contrast and de-busying the design vs an amorphous all-grey blob.
But I've watched the trailer like 100 times now and compared it single frame with G1, and I prefer the new Bonecrusher (vastly) over the G1 equivalent (the Bayformer looks WAY BETTER), and I prefer Bayformer Bumblebee. Blackout Bayformer vs G1, no contest (G1 version looks stupid) I haven't seen enough of Bay Ironside/Ratchet and Brawl to make a judgement. Barricade looks cool tho.
So yeah, Megatron looks like a scrap metal mess, so they screwed up 1 design, but I think they improved over the G1 designs in many areas on other characters.
For me the big issue is the new toys are plastic instead of metal == LAME.