Integration

[BB Shockwave]

It's not a continuation of the old series... you can pretend that, but any callback to it is just hommage, a way of the creators to show their appretiation to the beginnings. Same thing happened in Transformers Animated - the G1 footage "history tapes" Optimus Prime watches at the beginning of episode 1 don't mean G1 was a precursor to Animated at all. It is just hommage.

By the way, who else spotted the Ro-Bear Berbil arm in the dog's black market shop? I guess the cats never encountered that race before either, or they'd know about technology.