I agree with you. Retina display is only a MUST HAVE for techies like the ones that frequent this page. The $299 "Apple iPad Mini" is what people want. All the other stuff (Retina, A7, M7, RAM, iOS7) is gibberish to the general consumer. My wife has heard me talk about all of those things before and I'm sure she will only understand "Retina" and that's only a maybe. She knows what an iOS is but not which is the most recent version. She's still wondering why there's no "Key Lime Pie" in Apple products.
She just doesn't care... she goes glassy eyed and zones out when I talk about tech... and in there world there are way more of her than there is of the tech savvy.
This is exactly what many of the readers of MacRumors fail to understand, they are in a tiny minority and most of the rest of the world fall into the same category as your wife. They like using the kit but could not care less about what is inside it.