I do love big-ass robots, but I'm totally old school.
Growing up going back & forth between Korea & the U.S., I became fans of bunch of mechs that were popular in that era, some in the West, some in the East, some on both sides of the pond --
Atom/Astroboy
Mazinger/Tranzor Z
Grandizer
Mechander Robo
Transformers
Voltron
Gobots, etc...
But above all, for us kids in Korea, we had the Robot Taekwon V (or more precisely for my generation, it was the sequel, Super Taekwon V) Yeah!
As for Gundams, I loved the desings of the mechs as a kid, but I never saw a single episode of it at that time (saw it only through books & magazines). I guess the story was for a bit more "mature" audience, so it never made it past the Korean censors in the 80s. I tried getting in to it as an adult, but to be honest, story didn't pick up fast enough. I just don't have time to be watching 500,000 episodes just for the sake of watching it.
The only one that really impressed me after becoming an adult was Giant Robo. This one had the opposite effect of Gundam. The design of the Robot wasn't particularly slick looking, but the presentation was just rad. It's been awhile since I've seen it though... 10 years or so?