Thank you for your response. So from that I can assume that all of the glitches, issues and problems that only started to appear from downloading iOS 8 and subsequent updates are "rooted in something else?"
No. iOS 8 did bring some problems. Most of them have been squashed with the recent updates, a few, mostly relating to networking and discoverability, linger.
Some of the problems being blamed on iOS 8 are what you'd call collateral damage. Not iOS 8 specifically, but that apps designed for more capable iPads are pushing the older iPads to the brink of failure, and sometimes a bit beyond. It's not that the iPad 2 can't, in theory, handle the load, it's that it can only barely handle the load and the benefit to developers to make sure their apps work well on the oldest supported model isn't very motivating.
That means that a lot of the problems depend on combinations of apps, how much storage is left on your device, what kind of sites you visit, and probably a few other things I don't know about. In short, it's very unpredictable person to person. Some people are going to see no issues, while others are going to feel like the world is falling apart. From the general discussions here I'm going to guess that the ratio between no problem and all problem is in favor of the former. Not that I expect that makes those with issues any happier.
However, the problem you described has been around since at least iOS 6. Lately it seems that clearing web history and data is enough; something that didn't always work in iOS 6 and 7. A few people were forced to do a clean restore (no backup) to fix the issue. It's rooted in bad banner adds that use javascript. That Apple hasn't fixed it suggests that it can't be easily fixed without disabling javascript all together, which would cripple a great many web sites.
Another words, it's a result the continuing battle between shady/intrusive advertising practices and browser developers.
