I understand your point but in all honesty I couldn't care less how fast the processor is or how much memory it has. It's a phone. I'm not using it to do CTU intensive things. I'm using it to call people, browse News/Facebook and listen to music, like the majority of iPhone users. The 4S already does those things rapidly.
For me, the Retina display wholly justified the upgrade from the 3GS and it was worth every penny.
I personally feel they need something better than a larger screen and improved tech specs, the latter of which I couldn't care less about. They've barely changed anything on the Camera either although to be fair it's pretty good already. Say the iPhone 5 had a revolutionary new type of battery that powered the thing for days on end - I'd have pre-ordered one straight away. That's the sort of thing that would impress me.
Not saying that I disagree that the 4S to the 5 is an unworthy upgrade, however, what exactly do you expect them to do? They've made it thinner, lighter, more powerful, given it a bigger display with superior colour reproduction, and have improved the battery life with the more efficient SoC. You're asking for something that isn't possible, on a device that, out of all of the devices on the market, does not really need it (improved battery life). I agree, a battery that lasted three or four days would be brilliant if you were away locally for a few days, but the fact is that it is very unlikely that you'd go to a location without any plugs - if you did, these locations probably wouldn't have any signal either. For what technology allows, Apple have pretty much done everything right: they didn't go quad core, they increased efficiency, they kept the battery the same (the only way they could make the phone thinner), basically all the stuff above.
As for those claiming that the 4S to the 5 is a big upgrade...I'm sorry, but there is a huge difference between "power" and "performance". Just because a device is powerful doesn't mean that it offers massive performance improvements - the 5 isn't a huge upgrade over the 4S in this respect. The 4S was already a pretty quick device, and after having a good play with the 5, it's faster, no doubt, but certainly not by enough for any 4S owner to truly justify, unless of course the display is that big a deal.
Obviously, if you are in a position to buy the 5 or the 4S, go with the newer device.
Clock the CPU to 1mhz and it will suffer greatly at browsing web pages, looking through contacts, scrolling through music, or opening any application
I don't know whether the 1MHz comment was a typo or not. If it was, that's just a silly comment, but presuming it wasn't, that makes no sense, the 4S is already clocked at 800MHz...