Yes, this is laugh-worthy. It's Apple's sneaky manner of building planned obsolescence into otherwise very competent devices. Just like my 4S, the brand spanking 6S+ will in a few years be choked by iOS updates's climbing RAM requirements. Not updating isn't an option either, as app updates demand the latest OS quickly afterward.

The iPad Pro is much more affected by this because it competes with Wintel devices. When you compare it to the Surface Pro, the later isn't considerably beefier except when it comes to RAM, which is enough on its own to give it double the life span...

Has the amount of RAM been confirmed?

I thought it usually was known once ifixit or similar did a teardown of the device.

iOS doesn't run in RAM, it's only bloated OSes like Android that need RAM. /s