The boffins at ILM (and Digital Domain) put hours upon hours of hard work to make spectacular visual effects, but do the people at the Academy Awards even recognise their work? Not a chance.
The main tool to get the Transformers alive and kickin' is CGI; you'll need damn good CGI to get them realistic too, which is exactly what Michael Bay, ILM and DD do! It's as if they didn't exist to the Award Board.
It's just like back in 2006, when Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith was only nominated for Make-Up (which it undeservedly lost to that bloody Narnia
).
As for Sound Mixing, the Transformers films brought new and exciting sound mixes in my opinion; sounds we really haven't heard anywhere else. Why does that get practically overlooked? It's hard work, too!
ILM, you always win in my books! Star Wars, Terminator, Transformers, Iron Man, etc and every time it's astounding.
I've been compiling a scale list (largest to smallest) of the Film Transformers based on; vehicle/alternate modes (with the best dimension data possible), as many official charts I could find & most crucially, the figures I actually own & desire! If anyone would like a bit of assistance in scale or would simply like a peek at the list, do say so! ^^
(Also been working on something big; I'm a writer, so that's a clue...
)