>>/12209/
> I think the most logic is what you state, that Twilight Sparkle was startled. 
There's some precedent for the idea that being panicked or startled can 'boost' Twilight's abilities from The Ticket Master, where she's able to teleport away from that crowd, so maybe possible?
 >>/12210/
> Maybe I should finally take the chatgpt pill for copy editing? 
It's totally your choice, though for my part I think it would be a shame to use any AI at all. I'm interested in what you have to say, not some computer, and even if it's just an editor, editing has a much bigger impact on what's said than many people realize. As I say though, it is totally up to you and I won't begrudge you using AI either - I won't even begrudge the AI, since I doubt it would care for my grudges one way or the other. 
> As I've stated earlier, I've heard mainly, or I guess I should say, seen in fanfics, either some special earth pony function or just mining of sorts (or just a strange thing that nopony outside of the Pie family/maybe Earth Ponies have any understanding of). But, I've only read fics haphazardly since 2014 and haven't kept up with anything new on that front. 
The soup idea I suggested earlier is honestly my best crack at it. I'd be surprised if a fan theory really changed the way I looked at the rock farm - but then, I have been surprised before!
> Storywise, it is certainly a 9/10 for sure! My 7.9 is just based on enjoyment levels.
My ratings are all based on enjoyment levels too. If I were trying to judge quality, my inclination would be to say everything in season 1 is 10/10 and that it's my enjoyment which is falling short of it, which is why I just judge my personal enjoyment instead!
 >>/12215/
> I don't Twilight Sparkle necessarily committed any wrong action other than being ignorant. 
This is very much my view too. I wouldn't want to blame Spike, per se, but everything that went wrong was due to him overreacting and blowing things out of proportion, and I think putting the emphasis on Twilight to defuse the situation before it gets out of hand is applying audience knowledge. We see things from Spike's perspective here, so naturally we ask why Twilight can't see what's going on and intervene, because that's what Spike is asking. But that's not seeing things from Twilight's perspective. I think then that at best you could argue Twilight should have been more empathetic and spent more time with Spike, but that's all very general. 
> I am not sure I'd call myself a full throated Twilight Sparkle defender here
Not even Twilight Sparkle would be a full-throated TS defender here I think, considering she apologized to Spike at the end of the episode!
 >>/12216/
> Was the scene in Sugercube Corner out of sequence or did they just reuse Sugercube Corner for a kitchen scene possibly intended to take place in Golden Oak's Library?
They might mention it on the DVD commentary, but I expect they just thought looking through cupboards in a kitchen would work well for the scene and put it in without thinking so much about whether the assets fitted the scene properly, and then it just slipped by into the episode from there. It almost certainly can't be implying he went and searched around in Sugarcube Corner, since he went there later and asked Pinkie for a quill, as you pointed out. I'd chalk it up to a complex animation/continuity error, of sorts.