Don't knock the home button. I've got a Samsung phone with those stupid capacitive buttons along the bottom of the screen, and if an app locks up or is running poorly, my only recourse is to restart the whole phone (or wait it out). With a physical button, I'm not dependent on the buttons being recognized and I can force quit the app. Plus, it simply looks and feels nicer.
jW
That has nothing to do with whether or not the button is physical or capacitive. All the button is is a switch that tells the os to perform an option. If the thread that controls the operation of the physical button hangs then clicking the button won't do anything either.