I'll say - I'm unfamiliar with ROM also - but he's been a part of the shared IDW Transformers universe for awhile now, so someone out there loves him!
Yeah when IDW announced they were launching an all new, revamped ROM, Spaceknight I did a double take and had to reread the article to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.
If I recall correctly, a long time ago possibly in the Marvel Comics Captain Marvel series that had Rick Jones linked to Genis-Vell the son of Mar-Vell, I think they had in Rick Jones apartment a toaster that looked like ROM's head, and in Rick's closet was a life sized ROM costume prop.
Marvel apparently then learned the hard way from Hasbro, the current rights holders, that Marvel's ownership of the rights had long since lapsed and that ROM cannot appear in spaceknight form in any Marvel comic at all unless Marvel ponies up the cash for the trademarks.
Marvel of course says "NO" and as a result they cannot do any reprints or essential trades or Marvel Masterwork collections of ROM, he cannot appear in spaceknight form at all either.
Marvel though does own ROM's HUMAN form, Planet Galador and all the other Spaceknights, and all of these characters came from the fertile imagination of Bill Mantlo
However after a Spaceknights mini-series failed to reignite interest and Galador appearing in an Annihilators mini series, Marvel apparently scrapped all spaceknight plans and I think Galador was destroyed a few years back in an Avengers event.
Soon after, IDW announces they have ROM. IDW is Hasbro's comic publisher so it would make sense that they would get ROM, but they still need to be careful not to tread on anything Marvel did, they apparently cannot reprint the classic Marvel ROM issues, and my thought upon reading that they had ROM was
"Wow, talk about blowing the cobwebs off of a dusty antique!"
But I enjoyed the new ROM series, too bad it was cancelled and wrapped up in a crossover event.
But at least they got rid of the thigh-high boots and the mitten hands