Chrome on iOS does way more than you think it does -- e.g., it uses its own network stack.
Still, the actual rendering engine bits have to be Safari. Heck, the whole reason Google built their own networking stack was because of those absurd iOS restrictions so they could implement a subset of the features that Chrome on Android has. So, the app will always be artificially hobbled because of the restrictions. And it simply can't be as fully functional as it is on other platforms due to those limitations.
None of that takes away from the fact that overall it's a good thing for Firefox to be in front of iOS users. I honestly do think it is. That way, Firefox remains a viable alternative for those users in Apple-land so they can sync between Mac OS X and iOS.
At the same time, I'm sad. Because a Firefox UI around the Safari rendering engine just feels wrong. It may sound silly, but it does feel like a little piece of what Firefox stands for fell with this decision. And I've been promoting Mozilla since its creation and packaging and promoting Firefox since before it hit 1.0.