Many of us have logged the problem with support and they have been no help in solving the problem though this route probably stands the best chance of getting Apple's attention. I am certain they are aware of the issues but have chosen to ignore them.
There is no point in expecting Apple to respond to our problems via this forum. It won't happen though there clearly is monitoring of this thread as evidenced by moderators deleting posts, often for the most trivial of transgressions.
Visiting a Genius bar is even less fruitful (if that's possible). The problem is obscure, hard to describe and few Geniuses appear to have heard of it.
I certainly believe that those of us with older devices will never see a solution to the problem. I have held off upgrading my iPad 2 to iOS 8 having long regretted upgrading to iOS 7. I suspect that iOS 8 (and thus iOS 8.1) is optimised for the newer devices that have considerable more memory than older ones and many have reported that their older devices run slower under iOS 8 (though to be fair, any OS developer has a difficult juggling act balancing customers' expectations for new features with the requirement for backwards compatibility).
I do not agree with the assertion that there are all these contributors to the thread that have found a solution to the problem but have not updated the forum with their findings. There are dozens of users here that have been extremely active in trying to solve the problem with multiple posts gradually adding to our understanding of what the problem is. With such an investment of time, effort and expertise I have no doubt that if they had found a solution it would have been reported.