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The real issue there is that Android partitions its internal storage into System and "Internal SD" space.

So your 8GB phone will only have 2GB that can hold apps. It's awful.

(Apparently this depends on the phone and OS version to a degree. It's true on GT-i9100s running Android 4.0 at least, and true on all 2.x OSes)

Nexus devices use one big data partition for everything, so you won't have that problem.

Downside is, no more offline backups or increasing the storage capacity by a quick swap of the card.

Awesome. Thanks for clarifying that! :)

I just find it sad that I could live with this restriction if I could remove the Google apps I do not plan on ever making use of.

You can, depending on a few factors. Applications like Titanium Backup should point you in the right direction. :)