Looks like you're right, but unfortunately the select is cut for me[0] because my screen is not big enough.
Since the list is not alphabetically ordered (it actually is, but with the English names, not the displayed names) and it shows no scrollbar, it wasn't obvious there would be other countries up there.
As for language, maybe Google itself chose to send me to the Dutch version. Despite all my attempts, I still cannot consistently get Google to use the language I want (apart from manually choosing it by directly visiting Google with the right hl= first, indeed). Right now Google.fr seems to be in English and offering me the three languages of Belgium, for some reason.
Also, it seems to be using browser's preferred locale, not the IP region. So, it looks like that changed, too.
Google, on the other hand, is just as bad as you described. Geo-based localisation, lots of clicks to change the language (or ?hl=en, once you learn about it).