This is I feel like I can't trust anyone on this sort of thing. I had an Android tablet. Widgets are almost universally ugly and useless. "Beautiful Widgets" is a great example of what passes for well designed on Android, and it's ugly as sin and useless.

Check out http://mycolorscreen.com/ for a better idea of what Android can do. Those are all actual homescreens, not Photoshop mocks.

Mh, no, the 3D cylinder is not even default ( i think ) and it's just one option of many. I have set it to normal scrolling behaviour as we know from other home screens. The 3D cylinder is just one option. This example shows that you can have a very different homescreen (an option you don't even have on the iOS). Another homescreen with a totally different layout was slidescreen. Sadly it was discontinued: http://slidescreenhome.com/ My point is: Customization is a great thing to have. Atleast for me. All the examples i show you are just a tiny fraction of what is possible, i just don't care so much for nice looking as i care for useful and handy.

The Weather widget is hell of a lot of themes and is quite awesome, the animations on opening etc. They did redesign it recently and it looks just nice. I get that "looks nice" is very subjective but i don't see your point. I can read all texts perfectly fine on the phone.

Another point is: I couldn't live without a calendar widget anymore. It's too nice to have the agenda for the next days right on your homescreen.