Yeah, I agree, AJ is clearly getting a lot more love, which is great! I don't think that the hate against her was ever that big though. I saw one comment about her on youtube after watching "The Last Roundup", and it said: "Nobody would care if Applejack never came back!". That is, however, all of the hate I've ever seen... And I'm not even sure if the dude was serious. When I saw that episode I was pretty new to the fandom, and I got very suprised when I read it (not to mention sad). Even though our dear orange pony, with that awesome south american accent, usually wasn't people's "best pony" I really doubt that she got as little love as claimed. And I really hope that these "AJ-haters" are just ghosts, as someone in this topic has alredy described. I've only seen the hate once, other times I've only heard other people talking about it.
In my opinion, I think it's good in a way that someponies exaggerated, even though I usually despise that kind of behaviour. Because it reminds me of propaganda... well, in this case it sort of is propaganda to be honest. On the other hoof, Applejack is now standing in the spotlight a lot more than before, and she deserves that for sure!