> Facebook is an instructive example here. They tried for a long time to make their native app (for Android, anyway) just a wrapper over the mobile web client, but they could never get the performance all the way there. They went native and have seen great results.

Except that anyone who actually uses the Facebook apps knows that the performance is horrible in the native apps– jerky scrolling, lots of on-demand loading requiring you to wait for multiple RTTs on every click, etc. I would be hesitant use Facebook as an argument for anything other than the need to place UI performance on equal priority with marketing.