Being of the fan of the show has its challenges.

As a semi experienced MLP G4 fan. (watched up to the end of season 4 as of the time writing this)

I think I can say with somewhat certainty what I think the show's biggest flaw is (in my opinion.)

And that is that it's one of those shows where the plot happens way too fast, or more accurately, the people making the show were constantly forced to keep adding new stuff to the overarching plot in order to sell more toys and marketing material on Hasbro's end.

Granted the writers were given lee way on how they went about incorporating these elements into the overarching narrative; but whenever I get to two part episodes like "a Canterlot wedding", "Princess Twilight Sparkle", or "Twilight's Kingdom" I can't help but mostly cringe and groan my way through them because I feel like I'm forced to watch what I feel "Isn't the show's biggest strength" just for the context going into next season and just so I can go back to the good stuff that being the main episodes themselves which tend to be fun slice of life stories with lots of fun character interactions.

These constantly changing plot elements conflict with the shows tone as the series goes forward. Season 4 in particular was a really mixed bag of a season where the writers basically threw anything and everything at a wall to see what stuck. There were good moments and episodes in season 4 and I think the season did the best at introducing new characters into the show.

However, Twilight was basically gutted from the cast in season 4 because her main flaw as a character was now suddenly written out almost entirely. The writers basically turned on a switch and now Twilight was suddenly serving the role Celestia had in the show and it didn't really feel earned. I should clarify that I am not against Alicorn Twilight as it makes sense lore wise; but I am more so against the idea of her getting the "princess" status so quickly, especially since she didn't feel like she had developed enough as a character to have earned such a role yet in the series.

Another big problem I had with Twilight in season 4 was that she never made one critical mistake once in the season and she was overpowered to the point where the final episode of the season literally had the other princesses willing give her all their alicorn powers. I don't think I need to tell you that watching characters with little to no flaws aren't particularly interesting, especially if said character is the "main character" of your show. Simply put, nobody wants to watch a Mary sue.

I feel like we could've has seasons worth of extra content if the show stuck with a slower pace and focused on simpler stuff like in season 1. I'm not against plot elements being introduced to spice things up and keep the show relevant but MLP is one those shows with an endless amount of potential to work with. So the fact the series feels like it fast forwards a lot character development wise just doesn't sit well with me; especially since later they would say the characters progressed slowly overtime by slowly overcoming their flaws as characters one baby step at a time.