edit: clearly some people share your sentiment, but whilst introduction of iOS notifications were a relief, I can't understand why anyone would think they are better than Android.
It's a commonly shared sentiment at least that Android notifications are leagues ahead of iOS.
My biggest gripe is the lack of grouping, and I do miss the fact Android used to give me 'active' notifications such as a progress bar on the download of a Spotify album, for example.
It feels like you control the messages you get, how they're positioned, what priority they get etc; much more on iOS. I'm sure this is actually release dependent, I can only speak from the old CM and modern Samsung ROMs.. but iOS generally >feels< a lot nicer, like I'm in control; non-removal notifications, general frequency and lack of notification location control contribute to this.
You can set priorities too IIRC.
I have used Android exclusively since some early Sony-Ericsson phones, and moved to iPhone just recently. I cannot put my finger exactly on why I prefer these notifications, but I think it has something to do with how easy it is to ignore them on iOS.
On Android, they're constantly on my face until I manually go through them. On iOS, they pop by once and exactly once and if I ignore them, they kinda vanish to the background immediately.