At least the Nexus phones I've had also never came with crap ware. This is yet another reason why I would only ever by a Android phone from Google. Of course the main reason are the longer update cycles that might even delay arrival of security updates. I really wish Google had gone the exact same route as Apple and only shipped Android phones themselves. To me the collaboration with random manufacturers also weakened the Nexus brand. I have zero brand loyalty to Samsung, LG or HTC. I wanted a Google phone. My iPhone doesn't say "Foxconn" on it, so why did my Nexus say "LG" and the next one "Samsung"?! I'm always surprised that these concerns apparently aren't shared by the market and people are happily buying Samsung phones with crap on it and unnecessary changes to Android that just result in getting updates super late.
In that Google is a marketing entity perhaps it's simply exercising one of the circa 2002 Spolsky doctrines linked to yesterday (https://www.gwern.net/Complement)? As far as Goggle's concerned the Androids are commodities that exist to run marketing-related software. FWIW I share your desires and wishes.
OEMs have always made better phones than Google themselves by improving and enhancing Android. Many improvements to Android came from Samsung, HTC and Motorola - the OEMs. Post 5.0, Google has only ever made improvements to Android to benefit its own hardware and ecosystem. For example, the Galaxy Nexus had no MicroSD slot even though the Galaxy phone it was based on did. Even now, Samsung is offering a phone with a headphone jack whereas Google has made their last two phones without, in a completely anti-consumer move.
Today's "Samsung crap" is tomorrow's "Brand-new Android feature that you need to enable Google tracking to use"
