More princess backstory
Griffin society and more interspecies interaction
The larger cosmology of the world: What is Tartarus? Do other races have abilities comparable to raising the sun? What are stars? Are there gods or an afterlife?
How much is taught at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns?
RD and Fluttershy’s history in Cloudsdale
A story where Twilight must push herself to the limit using every spell she’s learned
Stories about ponies with weird cutie marks

‘Story driven’ and ‘character driven’ are a spectrum, and good stories should have both. “Power Ponies” and “Trade Ya” are more story-driven episodes, while “Simple Ways” and “Somepony to Watch Over Me” are more character-driven, but their merits depend on their strengths as a whole. Story-driven plots can take time out for character moments too, it’s just that those moments probably won’t inform how upcoming events play out.

FiM’s style has been to focus on the personal relationship issues of the Mane 6 so it’s usually more character-driven, and I agree that’s one of its strengths. Even for an action-focused story, I’d prefer one that arises because of a character’s idiosyncrasies (e.g. Fluttershy unleashes monsters because she pities them vs. Fluttershy fights monsters because monsters).

But I do think there’s a lot more room for stories that occur because of an external problem not originating from the Mane 6. The show's perspective is very insular. Side characters like the princesses only interact as much as necessary for the episode of the week, and then they’re dropped. Secondary characters in Adventure Time (Tree Trunks, Billy, Prismo, etc.) feel far more fleshed out than most MLP secondary characters (princesses, celebrities, non-CMC foals, etc.), because they have problems outside the main cast, they interact outside the main cast, and they recur repeatedly and have little character moments even when it’s not necessary. Plots focused on new ponies and places might not necessarily make MLP more story driven, but it'll be hard to keep creating conflicts isolated to the Mane 6 if they've supposedly learned so much about friendship.

Yo Twilight, I'm really happy for you, and I'mma let you finish but… you didn’t get a kingdom. Twilight got a new house and a role that she could/should have easily been doing before. Also, the princess combination plan didn’t make much sense. Well, I don’t want to be too much of a party pooper. The episode was lots of fun and Tirek was a cool villain. Can anyone who watched the previous generations comment on how Scorpan’s backstory was changed? A google search suggests he wasn’t Tirek’s brother, but did he befriend ponies?

Huh, I never thought about it like that. But even if Mars has simple life, I doubt you'd find it, unless you're a trained biologist with a microscope and knows what to look for. Luna comes from medieval times too, so I doubt she'd help much either.

A planet’s habitability doesn’t matter much if Luna’s providing life support. I feel like people chose Mars because they hear about it a lot, but it looks like just a really big desert. I’d be more excited to experience storms on Venus or Jupiter, which we know less about. When you get farther out, those big planets are all gassy too, which would make for a super funky descent to the center (or… I guess it might just get dark and foggy so you’d have to stay outside).

I basically agree about Twilight. I was looking forward to where the writers would take it this season. Would she now have to take requests from random citizens, not just Celestia? Would she work with Mayor Mare? Would she meet other nobles, princesses, or diplomats? Would she explore the pegasus world? The answer is no, she’ll renovate a castle and stay in the library. It seems like the writers didn’t have any story ideas for what Twilight would do as a princess, so they just made it an Important Plot Point that characters comment on but has no actual consequences besides making for a dramatic season opener/finale.

Well, “cartoon” technically describes a medium, but colloquially, “anime” in English describes style and origin, so the meaning is changed in translation. Anime is usually recognizably different from all other cartoons, so it’s a useful category to have.

What baffles me is why MLP would be considered anime. It borrows some elements like bigger eyes and magical transformations, but the overall style is more North American than Japanese, and it wasn’t made in Japan. If the argument is that it’s anime because it deals with “complex issues of racial harmony,” then some people need to watch more “cartoons.” Otherwise I guess Maus and Persepolis aren’t “comic books,” they’re “manga.”

Yeah, there are definitely people who can remember tons of details out of the corner of their eye, without paying much attention. The problem is it’s a lot more unlikely that someone would actually learn better by juggling tasks that way, over deliberately trying to memorize things.

The episode’s scenario sort of works if you interpret it as "RD pays more conscious attention when she flies," not "RD learns unconsciously when she flies." That might be what you were getting at with games too. People often learn better when information is presented in a different way or for a different purpose. RD remembers better if her brain classifies info under "flying hazards."

What do you mean by “subconscious” though? Learning is built into games. By consciously mastering a game, you master knowledge applicable to another subject, but the gameplay is a conscious process. You can pick up unconscious patterns, but historical events aren’t as likely.

For example, you can learn probability or money management by playing Monopoly. That’s arguably partly unconscious, though I’m not sure of the strict psychological definition. But what RD’s doing is more like playing Monopoly and then being quizzed on what colors each property was, when she wasn’t paying attention. She could name a few, but any normal person would do better by being given a Monopoly board and asked to memorize the colors (or better yet, playing a game about memorizing the property colors).

About the learning, we’d have to establish why RD is able to learn better the way she does.

If it’s subliminal, then it’s very odd that it’d be better than conscious focusing. Subliminal learning “works,” but in a very limited way. It primes your mind to make associations, so for instance, if you subconsciously saw “cheerful” written everywhere, you’d be more likely to be cheerful, or to say/write “cheerful” next time you use a synonym of “happy.” But to be able to consciously recite information in a coherent stream is very unlikely. I guess it’s theoretically possible.

More likely, RD learns better because she’s more aroused (in the psychological sense) when she’s flying. She’s in the habit of paying more attention and committing more to memory when flying. There’s more sense of learning for a purpose (e.g. this info could be useful if a storm appears) and the exercise gets the blood flowing to the brain. You could emulate the learning method by studying while jogging, or doing something exciting (skydiving?).

Maybe some people also learn better when multitasking? Theoretically, I don’t see why not, though it's unintuitive that they'd learn better than by primarily focusing on one task. I haven’t heard of any cases. You can certainly learn this way, but it's doubtful you'd learn better.

Unconscious learning is usually for physical activity or picking up hidden patterns, and isn’t as easily verbalized, so I’d guess it’s #2/#3. On the other hand, since RD wasn’t aware of how she’d learned at first, the writers may have had #1 in mind.
Personally, I thought RD suddenly being able to recall by flying was unrealistic, and the real problem was she didn’t have the mindset of wanting to learn. The vast majority of people can learn a little by just hitting the books, without flashcards or costumes. The general outline of the episode's lesson was cool though. On another note, the editing and cinematography was great.

Disclaimer: Not a psychologist, take with a grain of salt.

I don’t see what the problem is. If one single person was able to produce light bulbs to service a community, he could put candle makers out of work. Flim and Flam are offering a new technology (light bulbs) that outclasses the old (candles). It’s not a perfect analogy, but I don’t see what the pony races have to do with it.
edit: Maybe what's confusing is what F&F's technology does. Their invention doesn't grow apples better, it makes apples into cider better. They're not replacing earth ponies' abilities because anypony can press cider.

Hearth’s Warming Eve is a traditional tale so it may not be literal, and unicorns have been shown to control the weather. (Also, if you want to nitpick, the "as now" only necessarily applies to the "Pegasi" clause, not the "Earth ponies.") I can certainly grant it’s possible that only earth ponies can grow crops, but it seems absurd because planting a seed is a pretty non-magical activity that anyone, even animals, can do in our world. It’s technically possible that Everfree is the only place where plants grow by themselves, but it stretches belief. It seems more likely to me that earth ponies can grow crops with much higher success, and the harsh conditions at Hearth’s Warming killed everypony else’s crops.

More importantly, F&F’s plan at no point depended on them growing apples. They only needed a partner to run an apple farm.