As someone looking for a replacement for my daughter's 2017 MacBook, a 12.9" iPad Air fits exactly the bill. She needs an iPad that can handle MS Office, some games, browsing, Music and most importantly, that she can use in her artwork, i.e. drawing...
She does not need 1TB, an ultrawide camera, a superfast CPU, or Thunderbolt. She does not need four speakers and could not care less about Face ID.
She needs a decent CPU, 256GB (she uses iCloud for everything), an OK camera (she uses her iPhone 15 for photography), regular speakers (she uses her iPod Pros for sound), Apple Pencil 2nd Gen., and she needs 5G.
Of course, the bigger the screen, the better, but the iPad Pro 12.9" is much too expensive for what she needs, with too many upgrades she could not care less about.
12.9" iPad Air cannot come soon enough. I was hoping for XMas, but alas...