Why does Michael Bay get to keep on making movies?

I went to go see Transformers last night.

Something seemed wrong to me, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it until this afternoon. I was worried going in that the movie would end up just like Masters of the Universe did, spending too much time on its new human characters when really all we want to see is more involving our fantasy characters. This movie had it in spades, but I had been expecting that.

So what had me on edge? Was it Optimus Prime's apparent lack of leadership skills? His use of the phrase "my bad"? His failure to utter (wholly intact) the line "Autobots! Transform and roll out!"?

No, today I figured out that the first 1/3 of the movie was pretty much just a guy trying to land a hot girl with the help of his magical sentient (but non-talking) used car.

Michael Bay basically made a Herbie movie, with a few transforming special effects added on for size. Bumblebee even drives on his two side wheels for pity's sake...