Skyling

Yes, they were. Even discounting things like magic and flight, there is something even more basic that dooms them horribly - population numbers. Yaks live in the freaking arctic - there is only so much population that such conditions can support without heavy use of magic (Crystal Empire). It would be like an angry Eskimo tribe declaring war on Canada. The first Equestrian border city they could try and attack has a good chance of having more population than the Yaks have combined.

Because they are more likely to accept your offer of friendship after you are done beating them into the ground and depriving them of all other options.

In terms of personal wealth it's probably Rarity, but Twilight kinda muddies that up with being one of the monarchs of the nation. I mean, she probably isn't sitting on a huge vault stuffed full of bits that she can swim in, but if she decided one day that she wants a, say, skyscraper built in Ponyville she could probably clap her hooves and make it happen. If we define "richest" by physical money available on hoof, that's probably Rarity. If we define it by ability to obtain stuff (of any kind and scale), then Twilight's likely in a league of her own with the other princesses.

Throw a dart randomly; whomever it lands on, it can't possibly be as bad as the people behind season 6

The Cutie Map 1 & 2: In the hopes that by removing these episodes, the blight that is Starlight Glimmer never gets to impose itself upon the show. Past that ... hmm, perhaps Mysterious Mare Do Well - that one featured some shoddy characterization all around.

She is certainly powerful alright, but on Twilight's level? No, she fall quite short of the mark there. Yes, she technically "fought" Twilight to a standstill during the finale, but the fight was incredibly stacked in her favor. Take a look at what Twilight actually had to do: She had to personally cast the time travel spell like a dozen times (and I doubt it's an easy spell to use), she had to deal with the shenanigans all the alternate worlds tossed at her in-between her brief fights with Starlight, and she had the task of beating Starlight without causing a big enough disturbance to derail the race and thus the timeline, forcing her to start all over again. And she looked like she was trying not to injure Starlight seriously (compare her mentality in Starlight's fight with the ruthlesness she displayed when truly pissed, aka her fight with Tirek). Meanwhile, Starlight ... only had to stall Twilight - stall, not actually defeat - until she manages to do something random to derail the timeline. And didn't have to expand any extra energy in between their fights, unlike Twilight with her constant visit to other hostile worlds and constant recasting of the time travel spell. It's actually pretty impressive from Twilight that she seemed to be tiring at the same rate as Starlight by the end of it, because she had by far the hardest job of the two. Yeah, they finished the race "even" - but only because Twilight was forced to take five steps for each of Starlight's one. In a straight up brawl, with no timeline shenanigans that continuously force Twilight to expend extra magic and effort, while Starlight gets to rest, with Twilight playing for as much keeps as Starlight did, and with the fight actually going until one of them drops, not until a time vortex sucks Twilight away again because the surroundings were disturbed too much? Yeah, I don't think Starlight would be walking away from that one. She strong and talented for sure, but a Twilight she is not.

To add to the others, there is one more thing to consider - The Royal Guard, as the name might suggest, aren't necessarily the regular army or police force of Equestria. As the name suggests, one of their primary functions would be escorting and guarding Royalty, aka the Princesses - Celestia especially, since until recently she was the only one around. And since Celestia tends to travel by air (Luna and Twilight as well it seems), be it in a flying chariot or under her own power, it makes sense that majority of the Royal Guard are actually capable of performing their duty once the princess takes to the skies, meaning having flight of their own.

Someone has to do all the paperwork, and she seems to have managed just fine for a thousand years already and the populace, by and large, like and respect her. I suppose Twilight could take over if the need arose, but I'm not sure if she would even want that. She might have liked peace and quiet above all else some time ago, but these days Twilight gets restless and complains about boredom if she doesn't get to go out on adventures - for better or worse, she seems to have developed a taste for some adventuring and excitement in her life. She seems to be a much more hooves-on, "frontline" type of Princess to Celestia's bureaucratic pencil pusher. So ... I guess there simply is no reason to. Everyone's quite happy with the way things are right now and it seems to be working well.

No single stallion can hope to keep up with Celestia. That's what the all-male Royal Guard is there for

We do know the horns grow back, since horn filing is a thing in the show - wouldn't happen if the horns didn't naturally grow out with time. So ... some bone like (nail-like?) substance, probably. And Celestia obviously haven't had hers trimmed in ages

At the risk of sounding dramatic: I think she's the worst thing to happen to the show in all of its six seasons, and her continued presence is slowly killing my enjoyment of it. She made a fine entrance is a villain in her Equality town, but everything about her and the way she has been handled since the season 5 finale I have found to be gag-worthy, and the way they try and shoehorn her into the plot isn't helping things. By contrast Sunset had a comparatively lame introduction and her whole highschool plot was silly, but the following movie really made her a compelling character that I wouldn't mind seeing in the show proper on regular basis. Much better character than Starlight, past a rocky start.

One has to remember that "earth pony magic" is mostly a fandom creation to begin with - it's very ill defined in the show, and when it's touched upon it's always in relation to farming and plant growing, or "connection to land" if you want to be generous. Strength? Endurance? Toughness? Those are things that have no actual support in the show that the fandom has assigned them (got to give them poor underdogs something against all the obvious advantages of Unicorns and Pegasi ) Maud aside (which is such a fringe case to be about as representative of your average earth pony as Twilight was of your average unicorn), the greatest displays of durability actually come from Rainbow Dash and Twilight (a pegasus and a unicorn), and greatest displays of strength from Twilight and Rarity (carrying Tom around ... Mac did pull a house along, but then again he was hyped on Twilight's freaky love potion at that time), and Twilight/Cadence (pulling along Dicord's golden monstrosity of a "charriot" in the sky) So ... yeah - I'd say Twilight and Cadence have displayed all the traits of your typical alicorn.

Hm, I guess the question is - have there actually been other cases of alicorn pregnancies (or even other alicorns besides the sisters, prior to Cadence and Twilight entering the picture) before Cadence? Celestia doesn't seem like she's had any children (married to her work? Or simply making sure to avoid pregnancy if she has had lovers over the millennia) and Luna has been absent, so I guess it could be a case of no one actually knowing what to expect at all, if Cadence is the first documented case of alicorn pregnancy.

This ^ An alicorn giving birth to an alicorn is perfectly believable. If one of those other "toy alicorns" turn up as foals from Twilight/Celestia/Luna, that's both plausible and to be expected - or at least nothing to be too surprised about. It's one appearing out of thin air that would cause me to have a fit. An offspring to an already established alicorn is fine.

I believe that might have been the point, sort of. I mean, Equestria has been getting along perfectly fine with just Celestia as the 'administrator' type of Princess for a thousand years - it doesn't seem like the country needs another Princess-tier paper-pusher, nor would it necessarily benefit from having one. A hero, though? Considering all the sealed-evil-in-a-can beings that crawl out of the woodwork lately and other mishaps and villains that pop up occasionally - yeah, they can definitely use a hero, especially one that isn't too busy running the country to go and personally help where needed. And there are a few ways that being a Princess helps here - for one, it makes her very presence a symbol of hope and motivation, should she ever need to organize a large scale relief effort of any sort, and gives her the authority to do so. After all, a Princess has been Equestria's guide and proverbial protector for a thousand years, capable of feats few other ponies would ever dream of - having a Princess on the scene is probably the fastest way to get everyone moving and thinking productively (Just look at the ponies in Princess Spike and how almost instinctively they follow all the directions of a Princess). It also gives everyone a clear figure to rally behind should anything ever happen to Celestia (or Luna/Cadence) herself - a wise precaution for sure, seeing as how the Royal Guard immediately went to Twilight for orders after the plunder vines abducted the elder princesses. SHe's essentially an immediately-available backup and makes Equestria's leadership less of a "all eggs in one basket" type of deal, which is obviously preferable. And having schooled Twilight herself since young age, Celestia can be reasonably certain that her values will be largely upheld even in her own absence. And since Twilight does serve as Celestia's primary "troubleshooter", it probably helps to give her the full authority to ensure that she can always focus on the problem at hand, rather than having to jump through potential bureaucratic nonsense and red tape if some corrupt official turns out to be the problem and can't be denied access to any loction or evidence. It makes her job as a "hero" potentially easier, in other words, by ensuring that she is the highest authority during whatever crisis she needs to solve. So in short ... she may not have typical "princess duties" (besides ones that she assigns herself), but the title seems to be there both so that she can do her 'actual' job - being the hero that Equestria needs - easier (and it's non-commital enough to not interfere with whatever heroics need doing - I mean, "Princess of Friendship"? That practically screams "yeah, do whatever it feels like you need to do to make this country a better place, no specifics") and makes her in to a backup that Equestria can turn to in case something happens to the other Princesses (which can happen, as we have seen). Or something like that.