yeah, the princes in the early films don't take as much precedence as the princesses, they were just seen as the heroes of the damsels in distress. As time went on, they obviously wanted to change that. But I like to think the early princesses aren't just the damsels in distress, they were heroes too. Snow White gave purpose to the dwarves' lives. Cinderella stayed kind and strong to put up with being a servant to her evil stepmother and stepsisters. And Aurora, well ok, Aurora is probably the least interesting early princess in terms of personality.
Yes, Prince Philip didn't have much to say but he did defeat Maleficent. I don't think she was beaten too easily, she could have easily killed Philip had one of the fairies not helped and put the spell on the sword to dispel Maleficent's dragon. The original animated Prince Charming didn't have much personality admittedly.
And Prince Florian was just there to wake Snow White really.