> You wrap your app in Phonegap, and make json requests to
  > the web if you need data from there.

You know what? I think you should try to do all those things you deem so easy, and then we can talk. Or you can google for phonegap success stories.

  > For most things, desktop apps were replaced by web apps

Can you name a few? I was impressed with GMail in 2004, in 2012 I am using Sparrow to read and write my email.

  > Instead, it will replace data/list style apps

In Cocoa Touch I have highly optimised UITableView for that. In HTML I have what, UL, OL and LI? And If I need to handle selection, edition, caching, cells with different layouts: HTML5 is still superior? Should I send markup over the web too? Or should I go mad trying to make offline cache work properly? If I am doing native I have CoreData. If I am going web route what do I have, IndexedDB? Or do I?