Sure, I was gonna ask why the executives were okay with giving Spike so much valuable screentime that could be used to promote figures they actually made, but then if "The Princess Promenade" did its job of selling the Breezies and the Petal Parlor (and more princess dress-up!), and "The Runaway Rainbow" did its job of selling... all of Unicornia, then I guess throwing Spike in there at the same time wasn't such a problem.
I suppose the deal was that Spike was originally just an animal friend for one playset, and though the cartoons got a lot of use out of him, the toy designers aren't expecting to suddenly sell a lot of dragon toys when the line's supposed to be all about ponies. This ties in with my observation that the new Spike and Princess Celestia are basically swapped in terms of merchandise compared to screentime. Someone who only collects the toys could be forgiven for thinking that Princess Celestia is the seventh main friend in the gang, and Spike is just some remote adviser who pops in for one scene half a dozen times per season.