The greatest relief out of this production though is that they finally put to an end the uncertainties related to their designs and integrating them into the land of Equestria, just from the very start of season 8 (School Daze).

By appearing a few times more as hippogriffs most of the time, they would become established instantly, clearing up all the doubts for any further production related to them. Even IDW, as they were becoming loyal to the show around 2016-17 (not sure in which issue they started to set their stories closer to FIM standards), they got rid of the previous designs and displayed two images of Novo both as a hippogriff and as a seapony with the 2017 body this time around. This appearance stated that said transformation could happen literally anywhere without making any effort. So, they displayed the exact same process with Silverstream in School Daze.

The new locations wouldn´t appear until the 6th episode and the entire species wouldn´t act again until the finale.

So perhaps, the biggest advantage that they´ve got here is that standardization of their weirdness and exoticism to a more normalized version that would pop up with more often. This complicated process proves how the concept was floating in limbo for so many years that one wonders if Hasbro used them as a last resort in order to not run out of idea for a new toyline for the movie. Well, this time around, those toys weren´t intended for the bathroom but still, the delay of their debut in this gen proves that they weren´t taken as a priority at first.

Same for the fans. They were interested in seeing the content related to them, by replying over and over the comment but keep in mind, the community took them as a gag that would end up being really popular, so much that the species would gain some spotlight, but still a gag after all. Nobody intended to reach that far nor take them seriously.