Wow... Blocks of text in response to Discord gone... Thanks, Apple (for some reason my tablet crashes often when i tap the top to scroll up)
So briefly

... I believe the highschool setting is inherently flawed from years o fsaturation of media in them. The only show where someone took the series into a waaaay more entertaining and deeper level (relationships, characters) was Greg Weisman with WITCH. The first season was weird and awkward and very meh. After he took over in the second season, he upped the story arc, the adventure, and the characters/relationships.
Not only did he just have the right intent and effort to make it happen, but WITCH was not a toy brand, which probably means he had more creative reign over it. Someone (i think McCracken and probably others in the industry know this) said that toyline cartoons are another beast and difficult to work with due to restrictions and guidelines.
FiM was, and ill always believe this, a lightning in a bottle. An amazing amount of luck and timing, and good/effective effort on the makers' part, even if the creator didnt get to create what she initially envisioned. Even though FiM battled the Ei guidelines early on, over time I felt its popularity was becoming too good for the show and so we started seeing inclusions of stuff from the toy department and mandates like the alicornification of Cadence or the CE which was to coincide with the toys.
I remember the news when Hasbro announced that they were merging both the toys and animation department even closer. A handful thougt it would create better toys (still no AJ with hat toys...) since it would have the toy makers follow the success of the show and even though i cant say if its true or not since i havent seen enough official pony merch to judge but i actually predicted that it meant the toy makers would have more control over the show. And i guess i was right.
So with Hasbro's grip tighter on MLP due to its unexpected success, EqG was probably created out of it. It wasnt a creative decision by anyone on the team like it was when Faust and her team created the show. The behind the scenes stuff feel very half hearted from McCarthy and the animators. Im really getting those vibes of "Im just happy to have a job" when she and others (except the Hasbro execs) were being interviewed.
The inherently media-saturated focus on schools and its cliches, the show's success leading to more control by Hasbro, and lack of the same good intentions commitment from FiM to EqG from the crew all makes the option to subvert the genre less likely.
You either take the dull lite route or you go crazy with it and try making an entertaining work. The WITCH option looks terribly unlikely, unfortunately. Of course, this is just my opinion. I do realize that maybe the dull lite route is less harmful. Im just more of the opinion of "Have fun with it, guys" which may be actually bad for society
