I really don't understand the lamentation around pinch to zoom. There's a fantastic os-level zoom built into ios! Set it up and three-finger-click to activate. And it works great.
I am a huge fan of the 3-finger zoom, but it's not exaclty the same as browser-provided zooming. The screen zooming provided by the 3-finger tap will not add resolution to downscaled images.
If I'm looking at a site that presents a massive image scaled to my display, the browser zoom will add more information as you zoom in. The 3-finger zoom will make the existing pixels larger.
Most of the time this difference isn't an issue, but it is a difference.
Three-finger zoom is more inconvenient and a little inconsistent in my experience on iOS9. It is inconvenient in that scrolling a page is sometimes difficult to accomplish when zoomed in. I feel like three-finger zoom is a last resort for when something is not properly accessible. I am visually handicapped and being able to zoom is essential for me. I have a hard time using sites that disable zoom already, this is only going to exacerbate the problem.
This is a little bit off topic (from standard iOS) but here's how I force zoom stuff with a little tweak I made http://imgur.com/1WXHoPv (jailbroken devices only). The thing itself is not for zooming, but it is a happy little additional bonus feature.
If I'm looking at a site that presents a massive image scaled to my display, the browser zoom will add more information as you zoom in. The 3-finger zoom will make the existing pixels larger.
Most of the time this difference isn't an issue, but it is a difference.