The nice thing about MLP toys is that they're designed for quite young children and are therefore made pretty robustly!  G3s may be getting close to 20 years old in some cases, but apart from a few exceptions if you didn't treat them too roughly in childhood you shouldn't run across anything too bizarre when cleaning them up.  And with that, you don't really run a lot of risk of messing them up.

That being said, the risks you might run into when restoring depend a lot on the work you're doing!  As someone who's had ponies since the 80s and has seen her collection age from her childhood to her adulthood (and cleaned them up accordingly) - Just cleaning with soap and hot water and conditioner carries very very littler risk of doing any damage.  Depending on how you heat your water will determine your mileage for risk of melting your pony, but their melting point is pretty high (definitely above 250 F/120 C), and hot tap water or boiling water won't do them harm.  Nail Polish Remover/Acetone used with discretion to clean up stray marks of paint or sticky stuff is also quite safe as long as you don't get it on any painted parts of the pony.

Personally I've had great luck with sunfading, but I know some people express concerns of that (worried about long-term possible breakdown in the vinyl).  So I'll leave that one to 'I personally consider peroxide sunfading safe (but if selling would let buyers be aware of this).'

Beyond that... well, I'm not sure what you're working with exactly, but MLP Preservation project has never steered me wrong, personally, and it's a great resource!

I don't get the POPS at all (I personally hate the look).  I guess if you collect those and pony stuff it's good.

Funko, however, single-highhandedly destroyed the emerging vinyl artist market in the US and for that I will never give them a CENT (fortunately the Japanese market still thrives).  They also produce incredibly sub-par work (compare Funko figures to those from Tokidoki - you'll almost never see registration issues, seams, and misspainting on the Tokidoki figures, when they're abundant on Funko figures.)

I love her!  She's one of my favorites I have apart from my childhood herd.  Really a perfect combo of color and design.

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I think she'd make a pretty cute custom G1 or G3 pony, or maybe an early G4 (sorry I'm just not a fan of the current sculpt.)  I think her aesthetic fits G3 the best.

Ultimately - you buy the pony, you get to decide its fate.  You get to draw the line between collection and creativity.  If you want to customize a mint Rapunzel?  If you bought her, that is totally on you (now I know a lot of collectors would have a heart attack... but that's their issue, not yours.)

In every collector vs. customizer group I've been in (MLP, MH, BJD) people will argue 'till they're blue in the face over whether creativity comes first on these mass-produced commercial items, or if collectiblity comes first, not wanting to change a single thing about the manufacturer's original intent.  There's value to each side - collectors have a quantifiable value on their side, and a clear-cut way of doing business.  In this curative way it is possible to amass a pristine collection with comparable collection goals to others.  Customizers have creativity on their side, and the value of artwork and creation.  The creator approach allows a collection to completely fit the wishes and desires of the person collecting, and everything can be then done to their tastes and whim.

Anywho... that was a tangent.  Personally I tend to take a middle ground.  I certainly wouldn't bait a good condition pony just for the particular mold it had, I would trade or wait for something more suitably degraded to pop up if I needed a certain pony for a custom.  But generally, I'm not creating customs based on a preconceived plan.  I tend to be sympathetic to the damage the pony has for what I plan to do to customize it.  I bear in mind that any permanent damage to a pony (symbol rubs, hair cuts, nibbles, etc) decreases their value and interest to the collector, and allow that to temper my decisions about how I will either customize or restore a pony.  To me, personally, fairly clear reasons to bait a pony are any of these that are clearly visible while the pony is on display (and that are difficult to completely and non-destructively restore):

- Severe hair cuts or missing hair
- Nibbles/chews/body damage
- Symbols/eyes/paint severely damaged or missing
- Severe discoloration (such as extensive regrind, stains, bleaching, and pen marks that cannot be sunfaded)
- Any major damage to mechanisms or loss of components (such as the princess pony or precious pocket pony 'symbols', or secret surprise pony saddles)

Granted even these depend on the pickiness of the collector - I'm not a picky collector, so I don't mind some of these things showing up in my own collection (my Locket, for example, has clear teeth marks).  But when it comes to making something that may return to the market, I tend to be either transparent in my restorations or go a custom route to ensure there is no confusion (such as alternate re-hairs.)

When it comes to letting the damage guide the customization I tend to follow this route -
Damaged or lost hair = alternate rehair
Damaged or lost paint (eyes, symbols, etc) = New versions of these or a variation on the original
Body damage (physical damage or related to discoloration) = Full custom

I mean there's more nuance to my decisions, but that's the gist anyway.

But again, at the end of the day - your dollar, your decision, and I think it's very important to not bully people out of their own creative endeavors.

You know it's funny, the babies were definitely much loved by me as a child (I played with them the most by far, they had the most adventures and stories of interpersonal drama), but I've never added more any to my (admittedly quite small) collection since childhood.  I have 6 babies and 4 teeny tiny newborns, making for 10 total and constituting of my 31% childhood herd and 23% of my G1 collection total (if we're counting just 100% Hasbro and no fakies).

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You can tell that despite being generally a conscientious child, they're still much loved (I need to get Beach Ball and Sunribbion's hair fixed up at some point...).

Oh that is some really bad pindot!  I can't really recommend anything further than what you've tried, but there's a really good thread here with lots of info and different techinques:

http://mlparena.com/index.php/topic,391461.0.html

To get this posey from here:

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To here:

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I had to get her as hot and soapy under the faucet as I could possibly get her while still being able to handle her (I was using a basic dish soap), then scrape scrape scraped until I was loosing my mind with a butter knife, my thumb nail, and the edge of a credit card.