No. Apple's digital signing certificate prevents this. The only exception to this is on any a4 devices and in very very special cases with the first ipad 2, because of a low-level bootrom exploit allowing bypassing of the signing certs, thereby allowing the downgrade. However, iTunes 12 has blocked the restoring of custom firmwares in attempt to essentially stop firmware downgrades.

I spend a lot of time in some other forums and EVERY time a new firmware comes out, people gripe and moan. The common complaint is that things ran faster on the old OS. Well, yeah, no duh. The new IOS is designed for a new chip. Every generation of apple product gets a new chip. Your old chip isn't going to run it that well.

Ever ran windows 7 on a pentium 4. It sucks. It's doable, but it sucks. Ever ran it on a pentium 3. Wait, have you ever seen a p3?

Your idevice is designed to last you two years. That's it. It is designed obsolescence. There have been 4 ipads released since your ipad 2 came out. Let's be series here. That's like being on a four year old receiver like an Integra 40.1 and complaining that you can't pass 4k or decode atmos.

If you're having problems with the new firmware, how did you get to the new firmware. Did you restore OTA or through iTunes. You'll notice the OTA updates through the device are very small, but a full firmware file is at least a gig. Doesn't that strike you as strange??

The OTA updates update the OS in such a way as they only modify the things that have changed since the last release. A full restore / update in itunes rewipes the entire firmware and writes it fresh. Which one do you think works more accurately.

If you have ever read anything about updating OS's on Mac Computer or iOS devices, the recommendation is ALWAYS to start fresh. Fresh firmware, clean install of Yosemeti. Sure, apple has designed the system where you don't have to do clean restores, but that's because they are trying to make it dummy proof for the end user. I guess I expected more from audio video professionals...