Well, quite simply, Option 2 has meant making more money.
I mean, good grief, one of the Bay Transformers movies probably made more money than the entire run of the 80's Transformers movies. ((Note, I don't know that, but, at a guess, it's probably not far off))
The bigger issue in my mind is that "original fans" haven't a clue about who the fans of a product actually are. Take Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The biggest fans of the product weren't people who read the comics or played the RPG or even watched the cartoon. No. The biggest fans were 2-3 years old. THAT'S what TMNT was for. So, when they came out with the kiddified TMNT movies in the 80's, older fans were flabbergasted. How could they make our glorious stories so stupid? Don't they understand who the fans of TMNT are?
Turns out, yup, they knew EXACTLY who the fans were and made buckets of money off of toys and whatnot. The movies were just 2 hour advertisements for toys.
I mean, seriously, how can you really point to Michael Bay and say that he did things wrong? He made Transformers into a household name and made all the money possible doing so. How is that not a good thing.
Or, put it this way. If the Transformers movies had not done so well, or only as well as the old 1986 movie, which, while held up by Transformers fans as a great thing, absolutely tanked, we'd have gotten six movies and now a Bumblebee spin off?
I'm sorry, but the idea that there are other metrics for a company other than making profit is the fastest way to bankruptcy.