It's an s model, nobody was expecting anything revolutionary, it's a product cycle that almost all tech companies use these days. One year they release a totally redesigned product, the next year is just a spec bump or in some cases a die shrink. It isn't possible to come out with a mind numbing new product once a year at this point.
I'm not a huge fan of finger print scanners, but it looks like this one is well implemented. The big thing this year is iOS 7, iOS 7 is going to make all compatible iDevices feel like they are new.
The new 64-bit A7 SoC is a very powerful chip. The fact that it is 64 bit SoC is a little gimmicky at this point, but what it is doing is paving the way for some really cool things. A new iPad with it's larger battery capacity paired with a 64-bit SoC and more RAM will turn the iPad into a device capable of so much more than it currently is.