The Zoids anime (Well, the Zoids at any rate) were mighty purty to look at, but I think I like the notion that the Zoids are the stars rather than the window dressing that this series has.
Hotshot pilots with really eccentric hair and an obsession with the Liger-Zero series Zoids are fine, but actually having the little gold and silver androids from the toys as characters (token audience-identification humans to one side) and also having the Zoids be alive and sentient in their own right makes their alien-ness seem a lot more prominent.