Why the heck can't I put widgets on my iPad home screen?

Home screen of my iPad Mini 4 with all apps in one folder in top left of screen and empty dock.

According to this Apple support page, their ‘solution’ to this is to let me have the Today View appear on the home screen when it’s in landscape mode. I am singularly unimpressed, to put it mildly, and hope that they fix this in iPadOS 15.