Yep, BW was definetly one of the best Transformers generations for me to be raised on (whereas my cousin grew up with the first animated one and knows it as well as I know Beast Wars). Besides excellent characterizations, visuals and action, in hindsight I can appreciate the respect with which it treated the whole original mythos, squeezing in cameos from many honored veterans of 'The Great War' of Generation 1 such as Starscream and Ravage.
Even more amazing however was that like so many things it was actually cut short by budgeting- there was supposed to be a fourth season! What it would have been about I couldn't begin to guess but I always did feel they unfairly glossed over a large part of Season 3's high-stakes wars given how much of it was 'character upgrade episodes' ('hmm, so Cheetor's more powerful, Blackarachnia's more powerful, Megatron's more powerful... too bad they get like two fight scenes each). Not that those weren't good (go watch 'Master Blaster', it's great), but they could've been better. Case in point, a crucially important plot scene was cut from the tail end of the finale (Nemesis Part 2) due to time/budget constraints.
Beast Machines I wasn't so thrilled about, mostly due to its limited cast and the overriding message of 'machine bad, organic good'. On the other hand while 'The Weak Component' episode was generally panned even more than the rest of Season 1 I considered it to be the best character development that Rattrap ever got. And like Silverbolt, he too, finds true love later on.
It trumps Reboot in my approximation, and that says something.