Hadn't noticed the expensive side. They typically got half off within a month or two of announce. Got my Pixel 4XL 128GB for under $500 because of the Google Fi deal.

I still have a pixel 1 from 4 years ago that I think just stopped getting major upgrades. Not great, but not bad. My samsung note 4 was around a year behind on updates, and felt very slow because of all the crapware. I switched to a nexus 5, with a much lower spec and it felt MUCH better. Even simple things like hitting the home button had much less lag.

I did end up installing Cyanogen on the Note 4 which made it feel quite a bit snappier.