People are sheep. They do not want unique apps, they want the same apps that their friends with Android/iOS phones have, with exactly the same functionality. Having just "the essentials" is not enough for a lot of people. And no matter what, they will always find something wrong with it anyway. You could create the greatest app in the history of mankind, and someone somewhere will rate it 1 star and comment on how the app would be so much better if it made coffee or scratched his balls for him. We have great third party apps on Windows Phone, but to a lot of people it seems like third party apps might as well not exist, no matter the quality. They just want official apps, period. Apps like myTube and MetroTube are much better than the official YT apps, but no one really cares.
I do have to agree that the Facebook app for WP is lackluster, and WhatsApp could be better as well (not talking about useless crap like custom backgrounds and stickers, though). But it is what it is, and I'm perfectly fine with waiting for the apps to become better. For most people, though, that isn't the case. They just won't be happy with the platform unless the user experience as a whole equals that of iOS and Android, and apps do play a large part in that.