so devastator has 6 parts, but the rest of g1 combiners, when in comparison, have 5. any ideas/reasons why?

Devastator was from Diaclone. They recycled the mold.

Because, do you have any idea what being the stomach did for Long Haul's self-worth. The man had issues being THE most worhtless part of Devestator...

There were six seacons. thats because each of the smaller seacons could become a weapon that the combined guy could hold.

And the 6 Monsterbots!!

 

But seriously, I think the reason for 5 was simply for the scramble city gimmick, if nothing else. By that I mean the ability to swap parts from any merge group to make arms and legs.

 

-Turbine

the feet, hands, head, and chest all get added too, would be better if all that already are there.

i think it could be to hold better or more movement devastator could'nt move his legs and the other could cause of a larger body

If you wanna go the comic route, Devastator was the prototype combiner, after that Shockwave found easier ways to combine Decepticons I guess.

id say cause most of the other gestalts have at least one really big member to act as the main body, kinda like E-prime, where the constructicons were all the same size and would need an extra bot to make a full size body

the designers probably realised after the construction combiners that there were some serious stability issues with having the body as two pieces. Devestator looked cool but posed poorly and fell apart too easy.