Alright, anon, now finally replying to you, like I said earlier: >>/12211/
 >>/12191/
 >>/12192/
 >>/12193/
> I absolutely loved this episode. It was the first episode that I watched, 
Interesting first episode! I know a lot of the Season 1 first episodes have people who came in at specific  points like that but this feels like an interesting minor one to come in and decide you were hooked. 

>  but it does establish that dungeons and banishment are things that are not unknown to the tiny horses, and given that Celestia had reigned for a thousand years it would seem likely that she herself would have prescribed those punishments at some point in history. 
I take the show as a bit more innocent but you do make a good point there. Early on, a lot of the fandom would portray Equestria as some sort of utopia that did not know these things at all. My argument has been that they did, but much less than earth, at least, now.   As for prescribing punishments, I think it's plausible that those things still existed but were rare and the upper end of what Celestia would dole out on somepony. 

> Faust, Gen 1 fangirl that she is, retained some of that early-80s brutality.
IRRC, Faust didn't like the G1 show much. 

> that Fluttershy actually is a child and Celestia is just calling her what she is. To quote Faust in her show bible, "(O)ur ponies, though independent, have an emotional range of anywhere between 10 and 15 with most seemingly about 12." The Season 1 Mane Six were early adolescents
10 star point right there. Yeah, that is another context to look at it. (I suppose another is that Celestia is so freaking old that all the young ponies are children to her). 

>  I have heard it mentioned (can't recall where) that Rainbow Dash was originally supposed to be very short.
Yeah, I recall that Faust wanted the mane 6 to have slightly different heights and body shapes but couldn't easily make it work for animation, don't recall where either. 

>  Twilight Twinkle's which involved a late-night study session after she had already become Celestia's student.
Show bible reference here I presume? Interesting. I don't recall that one. 

>  I greatly prefer the original concept where Rainbow Dash flies fast enough to create a vapor trail that causes a rainbow to appear. The idea was that pegasus ponies gathered bunches of clouds to create rainbows that would then serve as solid bridges, which is why Cloudsdale looks the way it does
I still like the rainboom, but fair.