The HTC Titan (a Windows Phone) came out a month before the Galaxy Nexus and had a true 4.7" screen vs. the 4.65" screen on the GNex, so it did not have the biggest screen. The Optimus LTE also beat the GNex to market by about a month and featured a 4.5" 720p display (though it wouldn't make it to the US until about 3 weeks after the GNex). The 720p HTC Rezound also beat the GNex to market, though only by a few days. And other phones with simillar specs followed very shortly after. Essentially, the GNex was not revolutionary, just par for flagships launching when it did.
I think both the Note and Moto X are bigger game changers than the GNex. The Note was mocked by many for its size when it launched. Now 5.2" is fairly common and accepted.
The Moto X is a game changer in two ways. First, it has completely changed how I expect to interact with a phone. I use voice commands all the time now. I have been a huge fan of voice commands since I owned the Samsung Instinct in 2008. That phone was crap in most regards, but it's voice commands, which were powered by Microsoft, were unrivaled by any other phones built in voice commands. The only thing that came close to comepeting was Vlingo on Blackberry. After that, Windows Phone 7 was the king of voice commands until Siri, though so few people used Windows Phone 7 that the greatness of the platform's voice commands was little known. Siri and Google Now are both great in different ways now. But touchless control on the Moto X is a game changer. Never before have you been able to initiate voice commands to do such a diverse range of things all without even touching your device. This is bordering on the dream we have had as humans since the 60's when both Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey envisoned computers that you could talk to and would talk back. I really think 2014 is going to be a big year for voice commands, and it will be due in no small part to the Moto X pushing this feature into an area it had never been before.
The second way the Moto X is revolutionary is in what you should expect to pay for flagship level smartphones. Motorola didn't throw in all the latest hardware because it didn't have to. More affordable hardware is perfectly capable of giving a grade A experience now. Instead, Motorola focused on providing an A+ software experience and, due to the less expensive components, has been able to drop the price to where people will actually be willing to buy it off contract. Sure, the Nexus 4 did this first, but everyone knew Google was subsidizing that device and turning next to no profit on it. Motorola is actually making money on each X sold, even if they haven't returned to profitability quite yet. Sure, we will still see $700 flagships, but people aren't going to be willing to pay $300 off contract for a phone that runs like crap anymore. They will expect flagship level performance, even if flagship bells and whistles don't come with it.