Of course not, but Apple certainly should have done something else. Do you really think it is good that the iPhone 5 has a higher resolution screen than the Mini?
Iphone 4 had a higher resolution then the iPad 2. The only resolution they could reasonably do with the iPad Mini, was 1024x768 (ie same as iPad 1 and iPad 2) or 2048x1536 (ie same as iPad 3 and now iPad 4). They couldnt shrink the iPad 3 screen at this time at cheap enough cost so the only other option was 1024x768, otherwise none of the software for the current iPads would run on the device. That would have been an epic fail for the device.