The iPad camera was never really intended for still photos. The front VGA camera was for video conferencing - Skype, for example. The rear camera is for HD videos. Both are fine for the purpose for which they were intended. But neither were designed as still cameras. For one thing, the iPad doesn't have image stabilisation, so any high resolution camera would suffer from 'hand shake'. OK - of course - people have used the camera to take stills and, yes, the iPad does have apps that enable stills to be taken. But the original design objectives at Apple were not to give the iPad a good still camera.
Tim