"Honing in" is not meaningless.Though a weird one I do recall from my time in Houston was "honing in" on something, as opposed to "homing in". Honing is a process in metalworking of abrading a metal surface to leave a fine but matt, rather than polished, finish. (A typical example would be the finishing process for the inside surfaces of cylinder liners in engines, i.e. the running. surface against which the piston slides.) So "honing in" is quite meaningless. But I heard it quite often.
Just because industry has taken the verb "to hone" to mean something specific in metal working does not mean that that is its only meaning. To wit, it also means to refine or perfect something over time. So, for example, you "hone your skills" in something. And thus while you are in the process of improving them you can say, quite correctly, that you are "honing in" on a certain standard in that skill. You can claim to be "honing in on a black-belt" in a martial art while moving up the ranks. If you want to write a speech, you start with a draft and you hone it. You can thus hold up the final version and say that you have been "honing in on this version for a while".
"Homing in" seems to inherently lack the connotation of improvement over time, other than just proximity. Where the goal/target implicitly requires improvement then that connotation can be implied by context, and so you could use both with regard the speech-writing, or getting a black-belt. But a missile "homes in", and doesn't "hone in", as there is no improvement or change other than location