I guess what OP was trying to say is that their application as creative tools (production vs consumption) is far more limited than the full fledged PC systems that we are used to.
In my experience that has more to do with the artificial limitations devs put into ipad software. Take MPC drum machines for example. iMPC Pro 2 could replace all hardware MPCs if they wanted to but they would cannibalize their hardware if they did that so they made the ipad version a toy instead.