The iPad hardware itself speaks toward a consumer culture. We have a cultural obsolescence for their older devices: who even talks about iPad 1 or iPad 2 nowadays when there is iPad 3?
I'm still rather pleased with my iPad 1, and use it as my on-the-go computer for trips about once a month. And that's for real work: writing and editing articles, managing a team, and doing app support and random email. And yup, an iPad 1.