The Reality Distortion Field is strong in this one. So if I understand what you're saying, android's back button causes users to randomly mash buttons in frothy fits of delirium, yet iOS's back button provides zen like enlightenment and happy endings.

Pushing the back button on an android phone, by default ALWAYS goes to the previous activity, or cancels context menus. Of course, it's possible to make the android back button do something else with the onPause method, just as it's possible to make that happen in the viewDidUnload method in iOS.

The dropbox and imdb android apps use tabs perfectly well.

Countless android apps use listviews to navigate.