They should recast the program to send out the tablets as loaners, then forgive the debt for the developers who make actually decent apps. A curated giveaway.
And how exactly would you define a "decent app" in a way that wouldn't be absurd or totally not useful and wouldn't give you ton of grief if a developer tried to challenge your decision? It's essentially the iOS App Store problem except you're mailing around physical hardware to boot.
I have no idea, I'm not a developer-relations or product manager. I'm sure something relatively fair could be thought up, though. I'm not pessimistic about that, and someone is going to complain no matter what, so I think as long as you tell everybody up front what the rubric is, that static can be minimized.