The people claiming "licensing problems" (you included) have not presented an argument that, to me, holds water.
Consider:
-Google almost certainly knows Apple wants to get off of Google Maps.
-Apple's brand loyalty is going to give Apple a decent amount of time to fix their new Maps product before a significant number of people begin to bail. Relatively few people are likely to not buy an iPhone because Maps are crap; even in this thread you see a few fanboys saying "just find a workaround, they'll fix it."
-Google likes money.
To me, it seems pretty implausible that Google would say "no, you have to do [stupid thing X] to use our maps." I'd be stunned if they didn't know Apple was making their own maps product, and that Apple would be willing to say "okay, fine, we'll use ours instead" if Google's terms were too onerous. I think the idea that Google would turn down a sizable amount of money to not-really-actually-harm iOS6 and the iPhone 5 at all.
Consider also Apple's recent behavior--basically, and I hate saying this because it strikes me as facile, but it does line up--since Jobs died. The hasty and ill-conceived layoffs at Apple Stores, the prodigious number of leaks related to the iPhone 5, and the more traditionally corporate behaviors of Apple's upper management (i.e., Cook and the shareholders' meetings, which he seems to regard as being much more important to his job than Jobs ever did) all point to a more market-share-focused rather than product-focused company, and I have no trouble whatsoever believing that Apple decided that they wouldn't lose enough users because of a terrifyingly bad Maps product that they should pay Google for continued use.
And I think most reasonable people would concede that's no less likely than "licensing problems". It may not be accurate, but your claim of "more likely" reads as fanboyism to me.
Do you have any proof of licensing problems? Most people say it was Apple which wanted to have more control over one of fundamental features of a phone, which is perfectly reasonable from a business point of view.
Then they shouldn't sell it as an improvement - "oh look now we have shiny vector maps! better than ever before!". This is just a lie and misleading / deceptive.
