There was a Chinese made cheap wind turbine based on a hub motor that's been used by a few of us in Australia. The brand shall rename nameless, as it needed a lot of work to make it reliable. Rated at 500 watts, with a little modification and the addition of a cap doubler, it had good low wind performance and could generate over 1000 watts. In fact it could make much more, but suffered heat problems, so furling was added to keep it in the reliable zone.
As Flux said, the hub motors were designed to have a shaft out both ends, so these units were modified with a hardened enlarged shaft, and run blade diameters around 2.7 meters ( GOE222 ). There's no cogging, so start up is good in low winds.
There is some eddy current drag, but overall the performance seams to be pretty good. I've had one running on a 48v system for several months now.
Point is, yes the hub motors do work well, but need a fair bit of work to get up in the air.
Glenn