I'd have to consider SDFM as my all time favorite as well. In terms of story, characters, character development, mecha and overall cool factor, this show delivered the goods. Before the Valkyries (and their somewhat retarded, earth-ridden Destroid brethern), most 'mecha' were more along the lines of Voltron or Ultraman or some other boring, unimaginative piece of junk. Macross captured an entire generation of fans that has endured to this day. The fact that this very Forum exists today, more than likely owes its sole allegiance to the VF-1 and characters like Roy, Hikaru, Misa and...god help me, even Minmei.
SDFM did have some seriously cool follow-on material however, albeit on an extremely limited basis IMHO at least.
DYRL looked awesome but in the end is only a high production value take on the classic SDFM. Without DYRL, we wouldn't have the Strike Valkyrie...imagine that if you will.
Macross Plus gave us another high production take on the evolution of the Valkyrie through the 19 and 21. I also very much enjoyed the characters of Isamu and Guld and the realism of their rivalry / friendship. Those two I believe, could easily carry a series of their own.
Macross 7... <sigh> I did not enjoy Mac 7 at all. In fact, I found it to be absolutely ridiculous. Isamu barely kept a grip on the YF-19 and now you're trying to tell me that some hippie can fly one while playing guitar and singing at the same time??? IMHO, Macross 7 should be banished to the seventh level of Hell. And you wonder why Gundam fans snicker at Macross fans...it's 'cause of Mac 7.
Macross Zero could have been great, had they abandoned the great potato head thingy in the sky and focused instead on the back story between the UN Spacy and the Anti-UN Alliance. Think about it. We will probably never see the Anti-UN fleshed out to any degree of depth. What a waste. On the flip side however, the Valkyrie dogfights were extremely top notch.
Macross Frontier? Remains to be seen. Here we are 25 years after Hikaru took that VF-1D for a spin and from what I've seen of Mac F thus far, tells me that we have a real shot at getting the Mac series that we've ALL wanted since SDFM. A great story, combined with state of the art combat scenes all topped off with interesting characters with potential room to grow.
SDFM was and is the most solid of all the Macross series. Perhaps Kawamori realised this too after 25 years. A quick look at the new VF-25 (especially the Roy and Hikaru color variants) could very well be a clue to this realisation. The rest of us however, will have to tune-in to find out for sure. I for one, have got my fingers crossed for a return of that certain SDFM magic.
I'll get off the soapbox now...rant ends.