That's true Zanaelf, yes there are apps such as the phenomenally clever new, very professional photographic editing and retouching app "Affinity Photo for iPad." It works flawlessly on the first 12.9 inch iPad Pro and some of the later iPads, the list seems to include IPad Air 2 (check as there's some doubt about that one), iPad 2017, iPad Pro 9.7 inch, 10.5 inch and 12.9 inch, but not, for instance, on my old iPad 2.
However, seeing that it works with several formats, including RAW, and can produce many non destructive layers and save with those layers to and retreive from your chosen cloud storage, it does not require above ios 10.3. I assure you that I have no ties to Seriph when I say that it's full spec and mighty reasonable for its spectacular capabilities. I rave about it, but no, you are right, there are indeed good reasons to buy newer IPads, but only if you need their capabilities.
It was me that wrote the rather critical, but I hope you agree, relevant post that drew comparisons between Apple hard and software upgrades and Sony's camera marketing methods. Within minutes Apple turned presidential and removed it, saying my post was "not technical enough, or possibly off subject." I.e. They didn't like that information being posted and censored it. I'm a journalist and it can always appear elsewhere - including their no reply censoring email. We'll see.
