Along with the reasons you state, the ecosystem is really messy. I've bought Nexus/Pixel phones for the last 10 years and continue to be bummed by their performance.
Pixel 1 XL was fantastic, but after about 2 years the camera kept failing. 3+ seconds to load, and it would commonly crash. Ultimately the battery life degraded, and the replacement battery degraded within a couple months, so I moved on.
The 3a fell out of my pocket and broke 2 months prior to the end of security updates. That was a decent phone overall, but not supported by Google as long as I would have liked.
Pixel 6 Pro has been fine so far, but my wife has been having issues with her Pixel 5. Slow performance, unreliable cellular connectivity, etc.
"Don't buy Pixel phones" could be the lesson here, but alternatives are arguably more of a security nightmare. My experience with Galaxy phones has been that they're preloaded with an incredible amount of junk that needs to be un-installed. With Pixel it's exclusively Google apps, most of which can be removed. That gives a smaller privacy and security concern than having 30 different companies with their apps pre-loaded (and possibly not removable).
> Apple's no angel either IMO, but I feel like it's worth a shot inside the walled garden for a bit.
I've hated on Apple a lot over the years and am disappointed that switching platforms seems like the best move after all these years.