People have hacked iPads and iPhones to run Android. And nobody actually uses it because there is no hardware back button, etc.
When hardware and software are a cohesive unit it's hard to run something generic on the hardware, or run the software on some other hardware. That is not the case for Windows, Linux, and Android, which is why people feel differently about that ecosystem.
Do they have a home button? I'm sure the answer varies but in general you need the hardware and software to agree on some things. That is my point. Even if the software is flexible such as Android 4 that will display the buttons if necessary, or use hardware buttons if they are available.
AFAIK Android was basically unusable on iOS hardware, using the sleep/wake button in an odd way and other things that do not work well.
Nope. Only volume and on/off. At least that's what the Galaxy Tab has. As you pointed out, new versions of Android allow emulating whatever buttons the device doesn't have on screen. And the newest phones basically don't have any, relying entirely on the screen.
AFAIK Android was basically unusable on iOS hardware, using the sleep/wake button in an odd way and other things that do not work well.
This sounds like the port was botched. Nothing you said explains why it couldn't work. In fact the oppposite: you've already illustrated the button layout is irrelevant.
When hardware and software are a cohesive unit it's hard to run something generic on the hardware, or run the software on some other hardware. That is not the case for Windows, Linux, and Android, which is why people feel differently about that ecosystem.