I thought Podcasts was derided even when it was first released within a year after Jobs' passing, so it being a bad app is continuity from that era if anything
Podcasts feels like one of those apps Steve wouldn't have used, so it wouldn't have seen as much polish. I suspect this is why Keynote is fantastic but Pages and Numbers were unusable (at least, the last time I attempted to use them regularly, about 10 years ago)