If you could still use your gingerbread phone, you might be amazed how far it's come. I found an old Galaxy phone with 2.3 on it, and it was incredible how differently I remembered it. It was slow and clunky, and ugly by today's standard.
Has the responsiveness improved? It has been a while since I tried out android (htc one and galaxy s4) but I think the biggest thing that drove me back to iphone is UI.