In many ways the app draw is a better analog to the iPhone's home screen than the Android homescreens are. As I never had the opportunity to assimilate into the Apple hive-mind, I'd never gotten use to the iPhone layout, thus I think my transition into the android OS was much easier.   The first thing to do is bin all the pre-loaded home screens and build your own. It's super easy to do and if you wanted to you could probably emulate the iPhone layout pretty closely.   I'm surprised that you thought the Galaxy S2 felt cheap. That back-plate is atrocious, but other than that it seems solid to me.