Have you had a chance to beta-test any of the previous iOS releases? It is possible that other iOS releases had lag issues that were fixed before the release to the general public.
No, I haven't tried beta releases before. I'm sure they'll get rid of all minor annoyances such as bit of lag or weird layout reflows. It was reported that they are working on the new design behind schedule, so I think this release was made in a bit of hurry.
Exactly. You should have seen the Leopard nightlies. The top bar translucency was off for a while and it was basically non-functional. The dock would crash regularly, etc.
The lion beta was a nightmare as well. I have never seen an os with that many kernel panics (definitely not custom driver related), lag and just random flakiness. And safari was just in a league of its own - although I do miss the tabs on top.