First, because we could also have server-class devices that are quite easy to setup (similarly to how consumer PCs where much harder to setup in the past and are much easier now). We just come to not expect it, but that doesn't make consumer vs server something that inherently justifies "more difficult to setup".
Second, because the "spend 1 hour to add an account on an iPad (and during an outtage at that)" is far from the common behavior of the iPad, to be representative of some inherent issue with it.
So, it's more like "I had a quite unlikely and unrepresentative experience with an iPad and it put me off from such devices, whereas I tolerate the same far more often from servers and desktop machines and don't think twice about it".
Which, put that way, is much less potent than "that damned iPad and Apple's walled garden wasted 1 hour of my life, I'm never going back to those", isn't it?