If it is authentic, it was never displayed in any of our stores in a two hour radius.  That's not to say it isn't, but lighted box displays were not really in common use around here until the mid 90's- and McDonalds (Happy Meals) and Lego were some of the first to use them in the local toy realms.  There was a giant Paradise Estate sign that hung in TRU- was the width of the aisles, so about 3-4 ft long maybe, give or take.  We had flat back posters too, but nothing like this.  Now, as I do recall, often the lighted display boxes had logo names on the box itself, rather than the background within- so that may be a reason why it is missing the brands and titles. 
Rare, likely...  legit... maybe.  It's artwork either way, so if someone likes the photography of Tiffany/Pearl and they won, then ultimately they have a nice wall decoration they'll enjoy, whether or not it's original.  Known shill seller though?  That's another matter- and nice guy or not, it just reeks of "steer clear" to me.   

What I wouldn't give to be living in England right now!  Lucky pony lovers who get those for certain sure!  Really neat photos.   

You're right Hathorcat-  though I'm not sure about the delays.  They didn't seem to go over well - which is a shame because it really was very lovely.  It's gold plated and has little Swarovski crystal highlights.  Mine came quite fast, but the marketers missed their target audience.  The bracelet was of G3 ponies-  here's a picture of mine:
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G3 was very popular of course, but likely not for the desired amount of audience participation that could spend a hundred dollars-  even in "four easy payments".  I'd lay odds that the new nearly cultish following G4 has will bring the greenbacks out of hiding if they were to do something similar with the current ponies.  Rarity would be a shoe-in for the new jewelry!  Truthfully though, I'd love to see (and buy) an embroidered fleece shirt for the $40ish they show other licensed products in the magazine for, or even a really nice *quality* music box for adult fans- jewelry really isn't my thing.  Wouldn't it be so very neat to have a classic fine wood chiming music box tuned to the original sound of the intro theme?  Or maybe a stained glass and enamel chimer?     Can dream!   

Lady Moondancer is very correct that it had a lot to do with shelf space.  There were some other factors too, at least in the surrounding 2 hour radius of area here.  I remember this vividly, so perhaps I can give you some first hand recollections.        

Northern Illinois all the way to Milwaukee back in the mid 80's was mostly farming communities.  There were very few stores-  it wasn't at all like it is now with strip malls all the way from one city to another.  We even had three massive bison farms around!  Stores still closed on Sunday here in town, and there was no such thing as a Walmart or Target.  For stores that carried ponies (and toys in general), there were only two grocery stores, and one hardware store.  In the next nearest town (20 miles away), there were only two stores with ponies- one was a Walgreens and one was a KMart.  The nearest Toys R Us was a 45 minute drive at a newly-built mall called Spring Hill- and it was a huge excitement for the folks in the area. 
At most of the stores in the area, the exact scenario Lady Moondancer described was playing out.  The hanging ponies were less expensive, and they moved fairly quickly, but the items that needed to sit on a shelf were much slower in changing around.  Our local stores had just gotten ponywear and some Twinkle eyes, but the baby seaponies stayed for ages on their hangers.  The first three adult seaponies were so much more expensive than the hanging ponies-  once they were gone the second set was never shown in the stores here.  The average price at that time for ponywear here was about $3.50-$4.00, hanging ponies were about $4.00-$5.00, and the adult seaponies...  they were roughly $12.00.  Only one of the three stores here in town had the adult seaponies, and they were always on the very top of the shelves- far out of an average kid's reach. 

So it wasn't just the shelf space, but also had to do with the price and fewer stores, at least here in our area- and quite likely in many other areas of the country too. The only time shelves got new stock was when they were mostly empty.  One other small factor from back then were the trends in the school and demand for the toys.  Most of the girls in the public school I attended were into stickers, stampers and Barbie dolls, and then there were little charm bracelets too- those were always sold out in the stores here.  Toys in general weren't a 'popular' thing hereacross the board, but there used to also be a couple series of dolls that some of the girls went after-  some were tiny little dolls kind of like Polly Pocket but they came inside popsicle playsets or cupcakes, and Strawberry Shortcake was fairly popular too.  More often the other kids would be after Michael Jackson things or cds- so ponies tended to stay on the shelves a long time.           

   Great commercials!  It's really neat to see just how far the cg animation programs have changed in the last 10 years.  Used to love the old Morph program, and this one looks a lot like it.
   
My hubby is from N. Ireland, and we both got a kick out of the 'Frosties' ad too.  Here in the states we have 'Frosted Flakes' with Tony.  Also, I had forgotten how heavily the Shark Tale movie was advertised.  Looks like it was even moreso overseas- haha!  Really cool StarSwirl!     

How much were the keychain plushies at TRU? I want Pinkie, but Hot Topic is way over-charging for them like the do for pretty much everything else. I mean, I know TRU is pricey as well, but if they're less than Hot Topic, I'll probably just have someone pick her up for me.

The small ones were $3.99- they are middle shelf right next to design-fluttershy.  There are slightly larger ones just a little farther down on that middle shelf for $5.99. 
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I don't recall offhand ShortyBoo, but I'll be going back to Crystal Lake on Friday morning.  I'll take some pictures while I'm there and snag the prices for you unless someone else posts it up first.     Afraid once I saw the big Fluttershy and spiffy caps, I didn't pay much attention to the other stuff.  The only exception would be the metal lunchbox - which was pretty cool too- except the ones I had as a kid always had a thermos in them.  Anyways, back to the shop on Friday! 

Here are some possible new things:

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Celestia sticker book from Target- about 10 dollars, this one is really nice because it includes many extra characters like Big Mac and Dr. Hooves.

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Pony Tissues:  these came from Northern Ireland. 

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Northern Ireland TRU kid backpack

Also, the giant 30" plushies of Fluttershy, Pinkie and Twilight have arrived locally in IL.  There were also new baseball hats and a Brony lunchbox (classic metal style), and a bunch of the new toy line in as well, but didn't have my phone to take a pic.