Certainly, Apple is behind on all of its iPad product lines.
If iPadOS is to get some much-needed revamping, it would make sense to wait on the iPad Pro and to give the Air its needed spec bump now. Said revamping might be decent to have debut at WWDC.
At this point, throwing in M2 into the iPad Air or M3 into the iPad Pro almost doesn't do anything on its own. We need other non-SoC hardware features (landscape mode camera; support for a new pencil, 12.9-inch size for the Air; redesigns for the Pro, etc.) and new software features. Otherwise, this could be a really dull release.
Then again, Apple really ought to re-examine what the point of an iPad is. For what "iPad" was originally all about, the iPad mini and base iPads still do that job really well. For the things Apple seems to be trying to push iPad Pro (and iPad Air) to do, it seems...really awkward. That's the biggest problem they need to solve with whatever they release in terms of iPads and iPadOS this year.