Want gestures? You'll have to look towards things like iScroll and hammer.js, which work "sometimes". Add that to framework issues, and momentum based scrolling that you will have to implement yourself numerous times... Oh boy. Basically, things that come out of the box on native will have to be manually implemented by yourself, and none of these solutions will even come close to native experiences.
Add this to the fact that phonegap documentation is all over the place, and all you will get are senseless headaches. Save yourself the frustration of hacking the web into a mobile device and go native all the way. You will thank your self later.