I got re-hooked on the hobby in July after a decades long absence from Transformers. Enjoyed the cartoons as a kid in the 80's but grew out of it as time went by, then got hooked again after catching the Prime Wars trilogy, and started my collecting there.
Most of my collection is second hand, snagging characters that I was familiar with and liked, and got eventually swept up into the WFC lines. Hunting these has been hit or miss, with mostly misses in my area due to incredibly poor distribution, but have been lucky enough to make a few friends who all keep an eye out for one another. Your hunts may be better in BC than here in central Canada, but sooner or later youre gonna get bit by the inflated costs on those items you mentioned if you want them bad enough. Netflix sightings here have been dismal for all waves to date, and our own TRUs are still unloading Siege shelfwarmers. (One day we will get wave 2 Earthrise) so like most posters above, your best bet may well be preorders from online retailers (which are a little more than walmart or TRU prices). I have had some good luck with preorders from EB Games, save for ER Sunstreaker which never showed, but for the most part they are pretty good to deal with. TFTToys.ca is also a good source (online) as well and never have had a bad order with them.
At the end of the day, collecting is what you make of it. You will go through phases of tossing the whole hobby out due to scalpers, lack of product, cancelled orders from retail ect, but those shining moments of finding something you wanted in the wild do make up for it. The character figures you choose will ultimately be your decision, based on your aesthetics, and really, no choice is right or wrong. (I try not to have duplicates of characters, but..hey, different lines have somewhat different looks, so its all good..
) There really is no "best" or "worst" figure, they all have some kind of charm that come with them for what they are worth. As design and engineering keeps improving, so will the items, as evident in some of the new revamps of some of the Beast Wars characters.
So welcome back! Enjoy the hunt and may luck be ever in your favor.
