Not sure whether a second IR camera would work well as two cursors on screen just sounds confusing. 

I honestly think the Gamepad was just a lost cause and no amount of games making use of it could make it appealing, consumers simply didn't want it. 

That said, I like the sound of your Wii 2 for $200 sans Gamepad, that's pretty much what I would've done too.

I wasn't thinking of two cursors, just generally more accurate motion detection.  Maybe better accelerometers would do the job.

Whether or not the gamepad could have succeeded with the right software is something we'll never really know, but the fact that after Nintendo Land none of its high profile releases aside from Mario Maker really used it in a meaningful way certainly didn't help matters.  I think Nintendo Land showed a lot of great concepts that could have become interesting full games.

Yeah equal gyro/accelerometer fidelity on both hands would've been a nice upgrade.

And there were other notable games that leaned into the Pad; Mario Party 10, ZombiU, Starfox Zero, heck even Xenoblade X and Splatoon used it in a really useful way. Ultimately, as the sales of the system suggest, it just wasn't a hugely appealing feature that the public were clamoring for.

Star Fox Zero was too little too late.  Xenoblade X and Splatoon basically displayed a minimap IIRC.  And let you super jump which was easily remapped to the dpad for the second game. 

The real potential was in multiplayer as in Nintendoland, which is why they bundled it with the system.  But, then they didn't have anything else using it in that way.

Even Nintendoland was not a killer app though, and didn't stop sales plummeting soon after launch, so I think it's pretty safe to say the whole Gamepad concept was just a largely unwanted one.

No, it's really not safe to say that.  It's safe to say that as it was presented, marketed, and supported, it was unwanted, but beyond that it's speculation.  The fact that a single game was not sufficient to sell the concept doesn't mean the concept couldn't have been successful. Let's say for instance that instead of New Super Mario Bros U, the Wii U launched with Super Mario Maker, which was actually a concept that to a much larger extent showed off the Gamepad, albeit not in the same way as Nintendoland, instead of launching it when the Wii U was already dead.  In this scenario, do you think the Wii U would have sold better?

I don't think Wii U would've sold better because it "used the Gamepad better", no.

You're answering a question that I didn't ask. 

Let me rephrase it more simply.  Wii U launches with Mario Maker instead of NSMB.  Does the console sell better.  Simple yes or no.

There's no simple yes or no to that. A response requires context, It may have sold a little better, but only cos of the appeal of making one's own Mario levels, not cos of the Gamepad. Take away Gamepad functionality and sales would not be affected.

There is a simple yes or no to that.  It's a yes or no question.  Either you believe it would sell better, or you believe it wouldn't.  Why is a different question, that I didn't ask.

Is Mario Maker with the Gamepad significantly better than what would be possible with a Wiimote or Pro Controller?  If you did play it on the Wii U, did you ever think "man I wish I could use the Wii-mote instead"?