There are many ways to design a pony, and that's probably why there can be so many pony fakies out there. Cute ponies are no longer a niche in a toyline. If you look at every popular toylines out there like Barbie or Strawberry Shortcake or something as sad as Bratz, every toy manufacturer wants a bite of the pony/horse pie. Everyone saw the need to diversify, ALL EXCEPT Hasbro. Hasbro created My Little Ponies and started a trend that's true, but they don't have the guts to challenge their competitors in saturated areas such as human dolls that they tried to perpetrate back in the 80s with the Megan doll, and eventually the Moondreamer doll line that didn't do too well, but was an obvious extension from the seeming success of the past 3 different releases of the Megan doll. I would say there is too much market research but too little actual experimentation from Hasbro. They may have focus groups and so on, but these are only small representative samples that are daringly used to reflect the world as a whole. That is simply biased qualitative research I feel. Ok, so this may sound too much like vindictive personal attacks on Hasbro's marketing moves, and in truth, I admit 90% is true!!! I can be very honest and hurtful most of the time.
Anyway, my point is - after a long sidetrack ranting - Hasbro has lost sight of making MLPs an age 3-6 toy. They claim they are trying to make toys for a younger age group, but yet they're not willing to shake off the "I'm so hip and cool" impression that their ponies now have that clearly belong to toys from the older age groups. Not that it is always a bad thing, but Hasbro is seriously putting in a luke-warm effort, making the ponies standing neither here nor there. They're not cool enough for the older children and too cool for the younger kiddos to relate to. Therefore, in my grading system of design success, they get a capital F (for FAILURE!).
The initial design moto from Hasbro was that they intent to make ponies an innocent toyline, free from fashion and bohemian strive from existing toylines on the market. Barbie is the typical OMG dropdead grogeous exemplar of fashion and the "it" girls club. As for Bratz with their unconventional attractive ugliness, it's definitely part of the bohemian sect. I mean which boy in the world wants to marry a girl with a head bigger than his football when he's 18? And little girls see Bratz as their "role model"? I can't help but LOL, ROFL and LMAO at the same time. If words can be animated, you'll see my action abbreviations fly. Instead of what they set out to do, Hasbro actually made a simplified version of the above said things. It was pure horror when I discovered my beloved ponies were all suffering from full time work that involved tea parties and costume balls 24/7. Even at slumber parties, they can be having crumpet magic.
I can't say I am a talented designer or anything, and my only credential is that I babysit my baby niece and little cousins, and by watching how they interact with other children, I roughly understand what makes them tick and want to react, and therefore, what kind of looks and play endears easily to them most.
In my opinion, small children don't understand what being cool and fashionable means. Age 3-6 is the time when they like to "monkey see monkey do"; they tend to either copy older kids or they find someone who looks their age and they copy each other. Therefore, the quickest way to create a pony that hits off directly with a child would be to make a pony look like a child. A pony is not gimmicky like some other toys on the market, nor do they have a strong storyline or successful cartoon to back them up, so their appearance is extremely important. In the illustration above, I've noted what I think are defining traits that are attractive to a child of age 3-6.
