Lot's of Options
I don't know what IOS 5 will bring, but there are several options for downloading documents now
From the Ipad.
-Alternative Browsers such as Atomic and Icab allow you to download docs from the web. I'm sure others do as well.
- Goodreader, which is primarily for reading/mocking up PDFs, allows you to download from the web. Readledocs, which is primarliry a file management system, also has this capacity
- Email the link to your yourself
From a computer. - Save the doc in dropbox and your good to go