I am incredibly upset about the New iPad 4 which should really be the iPad 3. The defining spec of the iPad3 was the Retina display. Much of the iPad 3's problems stem from the inability of the A5X processor to support the Rentina display , overheating , slowness, dropped wifi ect. This now seems to be rectified with the A6X processor. The A6X processor is the chip that should have been in the iPad 3 all along. I don't know whether Apple knowingly released an incapacitated product to maintain market dominance or realized the device was flawed and corrected it. Paying for this is obscene betrayal of Apple's customers who bought a flawed device. The automobile analogy is constantly used in defense of the iPad 4 . Apple should offer a free upgrade to all who purchased the 3, not just those on who bought it a month ago on a per store basis at the managers discretion. Apple released a flawed device and all those who bought it should be given a replacement. I have never heard of the auto industry charging to repair a manufacturing defect on a recalled car. This negligence on Apple's part is very fertile ground for a class action law suit.
Good luck with the class action lawsuit thing.
I have had my iPad 3rd gen since launch day. I have not experienced any of the issues that you list: inability of A5X to drive the retina display, overheating, slowness or dropped wifi. At the most, my iPad gets warm - but nothing that I would classify as "hot" or identify as "overheating". I watch plenty of HD video on my iPad and have not experienced any problems with the video...
Perhaps the A6X chip IS the chip that should have been in the iPad 3 all along... the problem with that is that the A6X chip did not exist at the time the iPad 3 was launched. To say something that outrageous would be equivalent to saying that the Apple ][ computer should have come with an Intel quad-core i7 Ivy Bridge processor - it would have been nice, but that chip, likewise, didn't exist at the time the product was launched.
As far as the auto industry/manufacturing defect analogy goes, Apple will replace any iPad that it sees is defective... but simply put, the 3rd gen iPad is NOT a defective product.
What this all boils down to is that you are caught up in the hype that because Apple released an incremental upgrade to a device that you own, you are somehow damaged by that. It's true that your 3rd gen iPad is no longer top dog around the Apple ecosystem... but it's still the same viable and fully functioning product that it was when you woke up on Tuesday morning.