A while ago someone made a nice graph of how good Apple/Google are at maintaining OS support for their devices, it's pretty informative (although I'd like to see a new one). http://www.fidlee.com/android-support-vs-ios-support/
In this case the Nexus 4 is still officially supported by 5.0... but not being able to call on a phone seems like unsupported to me.
Most of the Android phones on the page you linked are not Google phones. Whether or not they get updated is up to the manufacturers and carriers, not Google. You'll note that the Nexus phones have more update support in general.
Whether providing major updates to a phone is a good thing is debatable. My wife hated getting the 5.0 update. She saw it as a major inconvience that changed how her phone worked for no good reason. She would prefer to have the phone work the same way for the entire time she owns it.
PS: 'Sup, fury?
That's a bit of a leap to declare that the issue is an isolated one because your wife is not having the problem. As it turns out, my wife had that exact problem with her Nexus 4 on 5.0.1.
How widespread is the problem? Who knows. From my perspective it seems like the 5.0 release has been a bit more problematic than previous major Android upgrades.
However that being said: That graph really makes the entire ecosystem look dysfunctional. All smartphones should have full support for at least two years regardless of manufacturer and the fact most don't is a poor reflection of everyone involved.
Android needs a Linux style package system. They bundle too much stuff together into singular giant update packages, when in reality you should be able to update e.g. Dialer, Browser, and so on without touching the Linux kernel or Android services.