Your right I used to have a Nexus tablet, it was great and well supported, until it kept running out of space. I require something with a microsd card slot, i travel to a lot of places with zero internet access and any information or media or whatever i need needs to be on my phone (i carry a work laptop, i am not going to carry 2 laptops). When i looked none of the google phones provided that, maybe they do now.
Also 2 years ago i paid $700 for the phone. There is nothing wrong with the hardware, so i should pitch it to get another expensive phone? There is android 9 on the XDA forums for my phone.
Off topic, but i find it commical that my 17 and 18 years old kids yell at me because my 14 year old car gets about 27 miles to the gallon and pollutes so much, but every year they beg me to buy them a new phone so they can junk their old ones......