Whereas the Pixels just make better web-ready photos from the get-go, not because their hardware is better, but because their algorithms are. That seems a lot more useful to me because you can actually capture good photos nearly every time, with zero effort, and send them to anyone.
If you have a specialized professional workflow, I entirely believe that you can -- with effort -- generate a better end product. But that's not what most people use their phones for. "Dynamic range" doesn't mean anything to the average person, and if they use HDR it's to create that 2000s-like super amplified gimmicky lighting effect. There's not really even a way to get real HDR to properly/intercompatibly show on most consumer computing devices anyway... same with gamut and color spaces.
IMO (only) making it look good on the average device should be a more important goal than making a workflow that only professionals with specialized knowledge and software can utilize.