Y'know, to be fair, it's not like we really need the home button for anything on the iPad anymore; the five-finger multi-touch pinch gesture works just as well for going back to the home screen and the four finger swipe up works just as well for bringing up the multitasking menu.
Well, I think charlituna takes the cake for the best counter-argument to this. But I have to turn the gestures off a couple times a week when I use an iPad with "Game for Cats" to work with shelter animals. When they're attacking the little mouse running up the screen, the pads on the bottoms of their paws look like four tiny fingers sliding up and the next thing I know there are kittens deleting my email.
So, I'm very grateful I can turn the touch gestures off temporarily and go back to the plain old home button.
I know there are people who let their infants & toddlers use their iPads, too, and their hands are just as tiny as paws and still able to make the multitasking gestures.
I just can't see the home button being completely replaced by gestures in their current state. There are always going to be cases where a hardware button is preferred to gestures, especially ones that require four or five usable fingers.
