Probably a bit of both. Seeing as WebOS is based on the HTML/JS model that web applications are already familiar with, it might have been more obvious to them how to make it look fancy. With Android, you have to start diving into how the layout and widget systems work, and requires working with Java and XML, but it is indeed possible to make things look just as nice.

OMG The selling point of the Palm WebOS finally takes hold! Wooh that took a while, I think if a Palm exec saw this post they'd shed a tear of joy.