How right you are! The Google Nexus lines were originally industry leaders, signalling the next minimum feature set and specs for Android phones with the added benefit of unadulterated (carrier cruft free) Android releases on the fastest release cycle.
Now vendors are far exceeding specs found on Nexus phones and even the rumored Pixel phones; the next Asus phone[1] has 6 GB of system memory versus Marlin's rumored 4 GB, and the Asus phone has expandable memory^H^H^H^H storage to boot which is something Google eschews on their devices.
So consumers are really down to rolling the dice on timeliness of vendor OS releases - do you risk a nicer phone that is potentially rarely, slowly or never updated or take a middle-of-the-road phone from Google that'll have regular security patches and OS releases for 18 months?
It's no wonder people root their phones and run Cyanogen so they can have the best of both worlds.
[1]
http://www.gsmarena.com/snapdragon_821powered_asus_zenfone_3...