From my personal experience as illustrator, I found the Apple pencil design and weight is much better for drawing than the surface pen with the tip, and yes, what I hold in my hand effect how I draw significantly.
Also, I found that iOS is just built for touch from the group up, unlike Windows, and when combined with well-designed app like Procreate, it just made every interaction with the screen with your hand and Pencil when you drawing so smooth and natural. It's just mind blown for us who draw for living. It just do one thing we want really, really well. Before iPad and Apple Pencil comes, the closest thing to draw directly on screen is the uber-expensive Wacom Cintiq, which mostly used by studio and serious professional rather than individual.
Windows and Photoshop on touch device is quite usable for drawing. I'd say, it is much better than in the past. But once in a while you'll end up running into some software quirk and lagging experience, miniscule menu to click on, some part of software that didn't design for touch, etc., not to mention that Photoshop is ultra-ultra bloated software. It never natural to work on it.
Anyway, I understand why people that's not into the art field didn't see the use of iPad much. It's still a big iPhone to many people, and yes, its file manager and multitasking is garbage.