I remember having two Jurassic Park velociraptor toys as a kid. One had the arms positioned as in the film but, oddly enough, the other got it right, as in the article.

Wrong:

http://www.toydreams.co.uk/images/jurassicpark/loose/dinosau...

Right:

http://dinotoyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/JPRaptor-4...

That second image just triggered something in my brain.

I remember the texture and the smell of the rubber after 20+ years.

I remember 2 being harder plastic and 1 being the more rubbery one. Though I could well be wrong. Sold all that stuff years ago except three or four of the bigger ones, which my kids play with.

second is better, but you'd want the hands flattened out too, right? Claws extended straight instead of curved in.

Maybe, but it's intended to be actively grabbing with them, not at rest (so having them turned correctly is probably just an accident, not a correction of the earlier pose) so the curved-in hands might make sense—I didn't get the impression from the article that their wrists and "fingers" can't bend. The toy would move the arms in a grasping motion when, IIRC, you pulled the legs a certain way. Something like that.

I'm still not sure I understand the logic of that; the only rotation I see is in the supine in the 'correct' version. The 'wrong' version doesn't require any rotation at all, even using the illustrations. It's simply lifting the front limbs up, allowing the hands to rest.

Imagine a chicken flapping its wings forward at a cat or something.

If you want to bring it in front of you in the zombie like position most people use, you should have a notable rotation of both the elbow and the wrist.

This is true, but I notice similarly if I attempt a hands up position.

I should mention how excellent and detailed this article is. Anyone with a young child knows how fascinating they find this stuff and I have some corrections from this article to share with mine.