Never thought of it that way before but it sounds about right, though I would replace “abrasion” with “impact” in most of what you said. I think hard parts (with padding) do a great job of spreading the initial impact across a wider area. Areas like your knees, elbows and shoulders are going to hit hard with a lot of weight behind them. Just can’t see that scenario with the back of your hand (unless your bike falls on you). More important for gloves is abrasion resistance. I can easily see a situation where your hands are palm down sliding down the road. In that case you want gloves that are not going to come apart at the seams after 2 seconds.
Working with computers for a living my hands are important to me so my Steve Held gloves were actually part of my initial outfit. At around $170 they might have been the most expensive single item I bought. I shudder at the thought of wearing $25 gloves. I now have two other pairs of gloves that do have hard knuckle protection and while they help my fantasies of punching the cager who cuts me off, I don’t think they offer much more in the way of crash protection.