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Exactly. What you're emulating is in fact the hardware, to varying degrees, which is mildly insane (in a good way). In order to get the most out of console games, you have to dig deep into the architecture and really start understanding how it works at the lowest level. Hence, you need the idiosyncrasies (especially what it does in extreme circumstances) of the hardware itself to be properly emulated, too. This is why third party emulators take so long to get up to snuff, because much of it is trial and error / reverse engineering.
The PS3s originally came with the PS2's processors actually "in the silicon", as it were, for near-perfect backwards compatibility. They soon stopped that for cost reasons; first dropping the CPU (partial software emulation, many issues with backwards compatibility) then the GPU, too (effectively no backwards compatibility). There must be a reason Playstation games work on any PS3; maybe the performance gap in the hardware means the burden of proper software emulation isn't as much of an issue.
If there's anyone in the right position to get a software emulator of the PS2's hardware working efficiently on the PS3, it's Sony. Sadly, it seems they're not going to do that any more, instead they appear to have opted for PSN re-releases and HD remakes (as someone else put it, it's like vinyl->cassette->CD->"digital"). Then again, it may never have been feasible, performance-wise, in the first place.
A port is a different matter, because you're essentially changing all the hardware-specific parts of the code. But it's still a lot of work, especially with those games that worked the hardware hardest first time out (i.e. the GT games).
The way GT games have been, though, you only really need to update GT5 with the missing features and content from the previous games. Realistically, that probably means waiting for GT6 (although I personally wouldn't count on it.)
