My definitive order on these has just been the IDW collections. Over the past few months they've gone on sale several times for $10 each (instead of the usual $25-$30). So I just grab 3 or 4 at a time, and now I have them all except phase 2 volume 8 which hasn't gone on sale yet, and p2v9 which isn't even out yet (that said, with the reboot now, who knows if they'll finish them, I might have to go hunt down the rest piecemeal).
There are a few mistakes here and there with the ordering... a spotlight out of place-ish sometimes etc, but for the most part it's fine. And I read all the way from the beginning of IDW: Furman era->All Hail era->first ongoing era->Roberts/Barber era. There are a couple of stinkers along the way, but reading lamer parts like AHM and Heart of Darkness makes it all the more rewarding when you get to the back half and see how clever Roberts and Barber really are, because they take EVERY little continuity discrepancy along the way and find a way to fix it. And most of those little fun patch up details are things you won't notice without looking at TF Wiki after each issue anyway, but once you DO see them, it's so awesome.
As infuriating as it is that say, the author of All Hail Megatron didn't seem to give a shit what Furman had written before him, later Barber and Roberts come in like masters and make the whole disjointed mess somehow seem like it was planned out the whole time, and do it in a super charismatic, quality way.
