Honestly, if Season 3 is starting in October I don't really mind. You may recall that although Return of Harmony Parts 1 and 2 aired in September, we had to wait two weeks after that while they re-aired them. Then we got Lesson Zero, and Luna Eclipsed twice (since it premiered the week before Halloween, and they wanted to air the week of Halloween as well). So we didn't really get on a regular schedule until November.
With the season already being shortened as it is, I'd rather we not have to deal with an irregular schedule on top of that. I have bad memories of Lost Season 3 where ABC, wanting to save episodes for sweeps month, forced them to only show a new episode every other week for a span.