/mlpol/ - My Little Politics

Let's say you're going to save the Mane Six and other ponies you like from Hasbro by ripping them off in a new, original piece of media you'll have full creative control over. A Spiritual Successor to FIM, only good the whole way through.
This is a discussion thread, not a planning thread for a piece of media that would actually try to accomplish this in some way(Too busy right now to even consider doing that), so how would you personally write this and go about doing this? What pros and cons are there to the different methods available, and what would you prefer to see?
Personally I think Them's Fighting Herds went too far with its changes. You can still tell who each pony is supposed to be, but some of the most important ponies have had their personalities changed too much for the group dynamic to be the same. I reckon a more "This is quite clearly The Mane Six but shapeshifted into different-looking bodies" approach would work better for this.