My understanding of Hawking radiation is that the split virtual pair explanation isn't physically accurate, but that tunneling of particles through the event horizon is the more physically valid explanation.
Wikipedia's understanding is that nobody has any idea what it is.
Originally, I read in his book that a virtual pair would split, and the anti-particle would fall into the black hole, reducing its mass. He never said why with equal probability, regular particles wouldn't also fall in, though.
So then you get to quantum tunneling, which is the theory that any object can pass through any barrier with some probability. Over enough time, enough mass should tunnel through the event horizon to cause evaporation. However, I have noticed that the universe is pretty good at creating probabilities that are effectively zero.
Finally you have the Unruh effect, which is that an accelerating observer (like matter falling into the hole) should witness a sea of warm particles. If you think this is vague, well, everyone agrees it is.
What it comes down to, is that Hawking Radiation is based on the conclusion that a black hole is a perfect black body radiator. Forgive me for being skeptical that an object ruthlessly accumulating matter, that is unnaturally cold (black holes are near 0 Kelvin, below the vacuum average of 2.7k)...an object which very well may violate our common perceptions of entropy and thermodynamics radiates energy perfectly like a car on a hot afternoon?
Point being, Hawking's "perfect black body" is one hell of a leap of intuition. Or quantum field theory, according to him.