They need to start moving away from using the Menu button. It's silly to have this big touchscreen that requires physical button presses so often. Tap, Menu, Tap, Menu, Tap. It's just not a smooth experience.
I disagree completely; it's silly to have a big touchscreen that's filled with buttons to do things that aren't part of the normal application workflow.
Having a standardized Back button allows me to reflexively hit a button with the expectation of returning to the previous screen without needing to pay attention to what application I'm using or where the UI designer decided to place the button onscreen.
Having a standardized Menu button allows developers to place options or advanced workflow mechanics in an easily-discoverable location without needing to dedicate screen space to more buttons. This means more of the gorgeous touchscreen can be devoted to content I care about, and not the buttons that every application should have in the first place.
Having a standardized back button means that when I hit "back," I have* a hard time predicting what it's going to do. Same for "menu." Sometimes "back" goes back in history (e.g., browser), sometimes it goes back to the last activity (if I got here via a notification). Menu doesn't always work, and I have to tap it to see if what I want to do is in the list of options.
The iPhone's approach of putting these buttons on the screen has the major advantage that they are only visible when they actually have a purpose. Usually, the buttons are also labelled more specifically than simply "back" or "menu." For example, if you're looking at your folders in the Mail app, the back-equivalent button is labeled with "Accounts," indicating that hitting it will take you back to the accounts list. Also, the lack of a "menu" button discourages developers from just shoving everything into a menu. The result is that more common operations end up directly accessible (and immediately visible), while less common operations (if any) are usually tucked under a menu-equivalent "more" button.
The potential inconsistency in semantically-similar button placement between applications is mitigated through HIG enforcement. In practice, it's not an issue.
tl;dr: putting buttons on the screen instead of using physical buttons increases predictability.
* That said, I've gotten pretty good at predicting what back will do after several weeks of using my device (with the notable exception of GMail, which breaks back button behavior spectacularly). This was a huge pain point when I first got my device, though.
