I'm not trying to start an argument here but just to be fair there were other toy lines out on the market that used the O-Ring before G.I.Joe and some others that used it after. Micronauts, Buck Rogers and Black Hole were three lines of toys from Mego that had the O-Ring constuction and were easy to deconstruct (as I know all too well) and customize. The truly revolutionary advancement G.I.Joe did bring to action figures at that time was swivel arm battle grip. That is what moved G.I.Joe to my favorite action figure line as a kid and what causes the O-Ring figures to still have a special place in my heart eventhough now I prefer most the 25th line.

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Forgot about Micronauts; never got my hands on any of the others. Pretty much I jumped from 12", 8" and 6" scale figures to the 3 3/4" Star Wars with only Micronauts in between (and keep in mind, I'd have been about 7-10 years old, so my memories have faded a bit. )

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Not a problem. I really only remember Buck Rogers and Black Hole because my parents thought Star Wars was Satanic back then so I didn't have any Star Wars figures and had the others instead.
When I was a kid G.I.Joe moved into Mega City (a Micronauts playset) along side the Micronauts, Buck Rogers, Black Hole, Flash Gordon, Zorro and the Fisher-Price Adventure People (especially the aliens like Clawtron) until the swivel arm battle grip came out and then G.I.Joe took over and the other toys got less and less played with.

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Microman created what would become the 3 3/4" Joe figure clear back in 1974!

http://www.microforever.com/microdesign.htm

So 3 3/4" Joe is based on a Takara design based on the old 12" Joe!

It's the circle of life.

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So, basically, the 25A Joe line, which is largely treated as "the best sculpt EVA!!!" by a handful of the community and touted as a "new" design is basically little more than a copy of an existing design that was around for 35 years--and it took Hasbro this long to copy it, even though this design was based on their own original 12" figures--and is nowhere near the same level of quality that Micronauts were? Wow, way to go Hasbro, you've really impressed me. <roll>

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