Works well as a bit of detail sprinkled in for old fans to notice. When it involves characters doing something stupid to service a thin plot, or clinging to alt-modes there aren't any reason for, it can undermine a series. Furman's as guilty of this as anyone, with the slight saving grace that his anachronisms tend to offer some rationale and be set up as temporary situations.
The 80s stuff is still there to enjoy, most of it's been re-released, and there's plenty of it. For the current IDW stuff it'd be nice to get more material that was generally held to be good comics, rather than good for a Transformers comic. They've probably dropped the ball a few too many times by this point though.