"Moronic?" This is totally OT but what's wrong with the male ponies?
Uh, they have muzzle like normal horse would (instead of...what is you call that face girls have), making them, essentially, look like a whole other pony specie.
G1 had "big brothers" be visually diffirent - but only in hooves and having heads be a bit wider, and even then, toyline had male ponies in "female" molds, too.
G2 (NOT TALES, actual toyline, which had no cartoon) had simply forfeited bodily diffirences - and the only thing to tell a girl and a boy apart was lore.
Both of those gens also had males be the same fun colors as girls, and have eyelashes, and we all know g4 men are overwhelmingly blue or "realistic" colors.
G3, technically, had no boys, but extra media slip-up revealed that Starcatcher was to be a boy initially (...so SJWs now troon poor thing in their arts, does not help he is white with blue and pink), he is incredibly fancy, but, again, no anatomical diffirence.
Bottom line, g4 did bad.