Funny, I seem to recall that the disillusioned techie reaction to the 4S was that it was also a non-update. Same shell. Modest internal updates and the only feature of note (Siri) was panned as an app that Apple bought that merely caught it up to other phones that already had voice control.
One problem with the 4S was the rumors of an iPhone 5 with a tapered design. (If you Googled for iPhone it would autocomplete "iPhone 5" — I guess bad rumors are now self-reinforcing.) At least this time the rumors were accurate and people can't complain that they were expecting more.
