I haven't looked through those 1k+ apps; I looked at the first few and would say you're completely wrong -- the apps don't hide the features we've come to expect of a homescreen of a smartphone. As I wrote elsewhere...

Oh well, they thought they could simply "take over" the entire, front-facing experience of the phone. They probably would have had better success trying their hand at releasing a better widget, surfacing the same experience without removing the notifications bar, apps tray, etc. Being resizable and able to coexist with other widgets (eg. 1x4 Search, 4x4 FB, 1x4 App tray) would appear to be a lot more welcoming.

Except none of those launchers remove functionality like the Facebook launcher is doing by hiding your status bar and removing widgets.

The 4+ star rated launchers add functionality to android.

What are you talking about? Launchers are just alternate home screens, the degree to which they alter functionality varies greatly.

For example, I use Nova Launcher, and when you first install it, it's entirely identical to the default launcher. Most people using my phone don't even know that it's not the default.