I've used a iPhone since 2008, starting with the 3G. It wasn't until yesterday, after loading iOS 7, that I noticed the keyboard was always in caps. In fact, I thought it was bug in iOS 7. "Why in the hell is the keyboard all caps now? Surely it won't ship this way." Then I used my wife's iOS 6 phone and for the first time noticed that it's always been that way. There's something about the new UI/color scheme that brought this to my attention. Or maybe the shift key state isn't distinct enough to tell me whether it's caps or not (and hence I look at the keys to discern the difference, and they're of course no help).
My point, on topic with your objection, is that I never even noticed the lack of lower case keys before iOS 7. So for me it's not something high on the list.