Why does it have to be a defined set of pages? Why can't the home screen be one large (for lack of a better word) graphic essentially that you can drag around in ANY direction as if you were zoomed in on a photo? And also zoom in or out as if it were a photo by pinching to zoom out or spreading to zoom in. This would also allow for icon placement in any position, you could essentially create a shape with your icons, a star for example, putting most used apps at the center (where the home screen would default to at full zoom) and least used at the points of the star. I like my idea better than these two solutions.