I think that sort of depends on WHY you'd see it as an omission/terrible example. iPad excels at being a simple shape, a closed unit with as few apertures in the case as possible. When you add a slot, you also add a place for stuff to get jammed, an edge to get caught on things and snap a card or damage internals if the card snags on something, battery life drain for read/write (small though it would be), using up space taken up by the battery, etc. etc. I'm not saying it's perfect, but I can absolutely understand why there wasn't / isn't an SD slot.