> How tightly does Facebook lock their stuff down to barely get a mention here?

Pretty hard. There are some extensions (FB Purity being the most popular), but they focus on trying to modify the facebook site in your browser, and they break often. There used to be more 3rd party android apps but FB locked their APIs down more. And even the FB app linked on this Github directory, Frost, does not work, as FB will not allow you to login with the embedded browser.