I suspect most, if not all, of the negative comments came from children, or people without any children.
My own daughter ran up $250 in charges in a single day, thinking that she was using in-game play money to buy virtual doll clothes and furniture.
She thought that, because for years my daughter used Android tablets to access popular online Flash based kid's games, with similar in-game "purchasing". Except with Android, she couldn't actually pay real money without my password.
Then I decided to let her use my iPad, since she had expressed an interest in Apple gear, and I thought, gee it's Apple, they won't screw up. I made sure it only had kid safe apps on it and let her have fun.
So when I first saw the charges show up on my credit card, I thought it had been compromised. After I realized it had come from the iPad, I emailed Apple to ask them to stop allowing more purchases. Mind you, I was resigned to paying for the past purchases.
To my surprise, Apple VOLUNTARILY offered to refund all those purchases immediately, saying this was a common problem with people not knowing about IAP controls (I didn't know you didn't need a password by default).
So yes, they knew they had done wrong, and they fixed it.
Heck, you don't even have to have children involved. Imagine if you'd loaned your iPad to a friend so they could play a cool game, and they charged hundreds of dollars of in-app purchases... all without them even knowing your password.