While I still think Lauren Faust did a verry good job at incentivizing many people to watch ponies regardless of the source material, I'm not one of those fanboys who said "she made everything". After all, animated TV shows are collaborations. They have animators, writers, character designers, producers, background artists, voice actors, voice actresses, etc.
I think Friendship is Magic was a product of circumstances. The first writers didn't expect the show to last for 9 years, and the approach of some questionable episodes shows that.