This is an exaggeration:

While web developers are able to make changes to code and see the results of those changes almost instantly in a web browser, native app developers must spend minutes waiting for their tools to compile, deploy and launch on a mobile device. This isn’t just a time suck; it also kills the urge to be creative and experiment with new ideas.In fact, the WebView actually facilitates bypassing the need to re-compile for quite a bit of experimentation, since (at least for Android and iOS) you can use remote-inspection/debug tools to, for example, experiment with CSS changes and see those changes instantly. As well, if Javascript is used in Rhodes, the Javascript can be changed on the fly as well (at least temporarily, for test/experimentation.)

If there is no abstraction of underlying native UI (Is there? The article doesn't say - would have to look at the in-depth Facebook docs) then that is a huge problem. If there IS abstraction, then that's a compromise. You can't win.

As well, working with native UIs is a slow, painful process. For those of us working on large Enterprise apps, with many, many pages, that would be an insurmountable effort. As well, it precludes leveraging HTML/CSS/JS resources (e.g.employee knowledge) which are relatively plentiful vs. native. And it forces developers to ALWAYS get involved in things that designers are better at. With the hybrid approach, we have a choice - designers know CSS. Do we teach designers native UIs? Or do they make wire-frames and toss them over the cubicle wall to the hapless developer who has to figure-out how to implement it? Sure, that is often done today, but hybrid development is open to other approaches that put designers closer to the product development.