In the end, the customer doesn't (and shouldn't have to) give a crap what issues you have with your partners. For example, if you build a widget and market it, but rely on ACME Corporation to supply a crucial part of your widget, and ACME Corporation screws you over, that means nothing to the customer. In the end you promised them a widget, and couldn't deliver. It's not the customer's fault that you went into bed with a crappy corporation.
Same thing here. Everyone and their mother knows that AT&Ts network is already overloaded and crappy in many areas. It's just the facts...and even if you have zero issues, there is definitely an issue because everyone talks about it. Their 3G network is already bogged down, and I don't buy the "Apple had no idea how many they would sell" nonsense. Apple is one of the biggest tech companies in the world. They pay people to come up with a pretty good idea of how much they are going to sell. They wouldn't invest millions if not billions into R&D of a product if they didn't feel it was going to sell a bunch.
So it's not the customer's fault that Apple decided to stick with AT&T, the world's probably shittiest carrier both in coverage and customer service. Apple offered the iPad along with the rate plans and by the time some people got their iPad the terms had changed.
That's complete BS.
I don't have a 3G because I would never buy anything that required AT&T network to operate. That being said, people are right in being pissed.
However, just like another poster mentioned, they will never see crap. In the end, they might get like a 5 dollar iTunes gift card. I guess you never know though...years ago when the Mazda RX8 first came out, Mazda misrepresented their horsepower claims on the car. It became such a fiasco when people realized the car was way underpowered that Mazda had to offer people the option to bring the car back with no penalty.
Even if they punish Apple like 50 million bucks, that's a drop in the bucket compared to what gross they have made on all these iPads thus far.