Have you guys heard of GennyMotion?
It's way faster than the actual Android Emulator.
My Professor for my Android Class in college recommended it to use for debugging for our assignments if we didn't have an Android Device.
Genymotion is mentioned in the article, along with the reasons why it's not ideal (aside from the fact that it's not a first-party solution, and that you can't get a version with the Google SDKs running).
It's mentioned in the article, but the downsides are almost all due to the licensing and pricing model. Doesn't really make it a bad solution from a technical standpoint (and for others to do something similar).
To me Genymotion is what Android "should" have, and it's already here.
http://www.genymotion.com/