@Dogman15  
Nice. I’m still going to interpret it as a reference to both Lauren and the G1 character.
 
@TexasUberAlles  
@Background Pony #D7BF  
They had a bit of hard time with legal in regards to some of the older G1 characters but Applejack and Spike were able to come on board despite those troubles.
 
It may have to do partially with trademarking issues. With trademarks, you can lose them if you don’t use them after a certain amount of time. Since Spike and Applejack were practically used in every Gen, they might have narrowly avoided that issue.
 
Another reason would be simply, Hasbro wanting to use some of the G3 related characters for G4. Hasbro specifically told Lauren to use Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Cheerilee (I think they requested for her to use Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle too but my memory is a bit fuzzy on that detail).

@Background Pony #D7BF  
Yeah, no point wastin’ time on “good” when they skipped straight to Best.

@TexasUberAlles  
Well none of the good ones anyway…

I love Pinkie’s traditional I Will Make Griffonstone Howl outfit.
 
@Background Pony #D7BF  
not being able to use G1 ponies  

@Background Pony #D7BF  
Let me linkify that for you.  

@Dogman15  
AKR said it: https://derpibooru.org/593905
 
And not being able to use G1 ponies was why the Rainbow Dash character wasn’t Firefly in the first place.

She was turned into confetti.

Well G1 Firefly had differently shaped lightning bolts but nitpick nitpick.

“It’s a reference to Faust, not G1”  
I can’t remember anyone on staff saying this, though I don’t doubt the “can’t officially use G1” part.

That visual pun.