You're absolutely right, the original apps implementation totally blew up in their faces.

Through regular redesigns, they've slowly been clawing their way back to decency. The twitterification' that has banished apps from your wall page was a nice step, but the further emphasis on the news feed (which I don't use, but others seem to intensely) makes the quiz bullshit prominent.

From their actions, the people in charge at Facebook seem to know how much apps have shit all over them. I think they'll continue to recover from it.