I have a smart cover from the launch day of the iPad 2 and it works fine with the new iPad
How nice for you but that's totally irrelevant.
What matters is that this is a problem that Apple created and could have handled in a way that would have negated any bad press or bad customer service.
There was a reasonable complaint about the 1st gen smart cover and Apple quite reasonably made a design change to remedy it.
They replaced the non-polarity sensitive magnet that controls the wake/sleep feature with a polarity sensitive magnet.
So why wasn't the design change announced during the iPad reveal?
"Hey people. We listened to all of the compaints about some covers putting the iPad to sleep when wrapped around the back and we fixed it."
New smart covers will be available on such-and-such date.
Old smart covers may be traded in by following this procedure."
No, they didn't announce anything, they just waited for the complaints and the bad press.
People who could have bought their new smart covers along with their new iPads or traded in their old ones right there on the spot were instead sent home without the knowledge that Apple had created a possible product conflict that would render their old smart covers defective.
This was a problem that Apple knew about because they had caused it intentionally and instead of turning it into the positive that it really is, they let it become yet an other negative.
This is nothing but bad management.