I do find it ironic that you're getting so worked up about how a device that's actually from Google with Google's spin on Android has Google baked in. Since your Moto device doesn't do that, and since Nexus devices are specifically designed to let you install any ROM of your choosing (e.g. this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKKBbRHwIVQ seems to let one remove the search bar), I fail to see the problem here.