One of things I noticed only just the other day was the huge LACK of robots in the later series of Robot Wars.
Even I got bored and stopped watching around Season 5 and I realised this was because in Season 1 the show was only 30mins, but you got to see 6 robots competing in a variety of formats every week.
I watched an episode of Extreme the other day, 1 hour and I saw 4 robots, soooo much talking too!
With the first 3 seasons lots of shots of the pits, people working on robots, close ups on the inners etc...
It also had much more rustic charm, the later ones just seemed too fake.

Just my 2 pennies.