Taco's criticism of the iPod was that it didn't do enough - didn't have enough features, didn't have enough storage etc, and he was rightly panned for getting it wrong. Criticisms of the price or lack of features of Apple products historically have been proved unfounded (it's easy to lower the price and add more features). So I agree if someone says 'but it doesn't do x', they can easily be satisfied by later models.
In contrast, many of the criticisms of this watch centre on the incoherent design, awkward interaction with a physical scroll-wheel AND touch interface (which Apple are not even allowing people to try out in the demos), and the grab-bag of features added to it, apparently without thought about how they all interact. It looks like it does too much, and none of it well.
They can possibly rescue this mess in the time they have before launch by polishing the software, but I'm hesitant about the concept of this scroll wheel (what they call a digital crown), which they have now committed to for the long term, and sounds like it is going to be very awkward when combined with physical touches and on the wrist, and pointless if you also require users to touch the screen. It would have been far nicer just to keep this simpler and use swipes and taps, and not try to hobble it with a traditional 'watch' shape.
It really does feel as if no-one was in charge of the design here, and lots of different teams worked on different features, which were mashed together at the last minute, without someone to force them all to integrate properly. I do believe Apple is entering a new era now - becoming a larger more stable company, and is now led by an operations person (Cook), not someone obsessed with design and willing to take massive risks in pursuit of perfection (Jobs). That is starting to have an effect on the products they make.