> Safari on my New iPad on iOS 6 works significantly better than Safari on my original iPad on iOS 5.1.1. For one thing, it never crashes
That's because the new iPad has 4 times the RAM of the original iPad. Lack of RAM was the cause of almost all Safari crashes on the original iPad. Safari under iOS 5.1.1 on the new iPad was as stable, or even a little bit more stable, than under iOS 6.
Apple Maps does just fine for me with driving directions. If you don't like them, you can also use Mapquest. On a 4G connection, Google Maps also works very well as a web app. HopStop takes care of my commuting needs just fine.
> I heard somethings about Safari being buggy.. I didn't really want this either as I only really use my iPad to surf the web.
Safari on my New iPad on iOS 6 works significantly better than Safari on my original iPad on iOS 5.1.1. For one thing, it never crashes.
> I was concerned about the memory footprint. As I understand it app's now download retina resources whether you have a retina iPad or not. I have limited space on my iPad. It runs fine at the moment. I didn't see any reason to update.
As an iOS developer, let me assure you that in most instances, Retina resources amount to a rounding error in most cases. (~35kB in the case of a full screen PNG image for an iPhone.) Also, they only take up a part of the permanent flash store, not RAM.