I really don't understand how they could build a console that is just on par with 6 and 7 year old systems. They had to have gone out of their way to make something that weak.
Whether or not they made the right decision for a given person's interests, it seems pretty evident that the Wii U's form factor, power consumption, heat levels (and incidentally, one would assume reliability curve) played a factor. A modern Xbox Slim or super slim PS3 is still a lot bigger, generates more heat, and draws more power than a Wii U.
A lot of Wii U's overall design seems considerate of the Japanese market, or at least what people are presuming about that market.
The problem is that if we're going to play dev quote wars, other developers have gone on talking about how the design of the system is smart and efficient, no bottlenecks, etc. (These comments do not have to contradict someone complaining that the CPU is weaker than they would like.) I suppose the ultimate problem with perception, is that sophistication ! = raw power.
At this point, it seems like it'd be worthwhile to have a dev roundtable where these guys just fight it out already. For all that fanboy spin gets brought up, we've listened to a year or more of developers alternately going on about how great Wii U is, and the problems they are having with it. (This guy is hardly the first to say the CPU is a problem for him.)