I knew Robotech first, and at the time I didn't know that the other side was any different. Ironically the way of learned of Robotech was unique.
I saw information and stuff on the game Robotech Battlecry which looked really cool to me at the time (in retrospect, I see now how it kind of sucked, but it still holds a place in the heart). Before I ever bothered to get this game I was a fan of all Science Fiction and mecha like things like Gundam. I went to the Robotech site to read up about this show and I was hooked on it. Then I bought that game and played it through. Eventually I learned through the internet that Robotech was in fact an Americanization of 3 Japanese anime. The interesting thing is however that I only really liked the Macross saga portion of Robotech, I could never bring myself to watch the rest, it seemed to not fit, I now know why. I eventually bought the remastered DVD's of Robotech the Macross saga, which I quite enjoyed.
Since I'm an engineering buff, I was looking up for more information on the Veritechs (bear with the word people, it actually makes a bit of sense as an acronym), and I eventually started seeing a lot of stuff on Macross Valkyries from many of the OVA's, movies, and series. This led me to eventually rent the dubbed version of Macross Plus the movie edition. Ever since that day I was an official Macross fan. I from there looked up more information and such. I've wanted to buy the DVDs of the English dubbed Macross series but I've always come short of actually doing it.
The thing for me is, despite Macross, which I agree is better than the Robotech version of the story and makes a lot more sense, I still like Robotech (Macross saga only though) and truthfully I still think of those characters by their American names a lot (Rick Hunter and Lisa for example, and I still like to think of Global/Gloval as Russian rather than Italian). So I walk the line as a fan of both versions while knowing Macross makes more sense and I now mainly favor that side, Robotech will still always be there in some form.