Ok, so my worries were unfounded. I love the phone so far. There is a very small screen gap at the selfie camera corner, but not something I ever would have noticed if I wasn't looking. It's in a case anyway. The earpiece speaker is actually far better than I expected. Not great for music but I never listen to music without a bluetooth speaker. I didn't know some things couldn't be removed from a pixel homescreen though. I planned to use stock android launcher for the first time in many years, but this forced me to install nova like usual. I would prefer if the screen were a bit bigger 6.2-6.3 perhaps. I am getting used to it though and love the small form factor and weight. Battery life is pretty much what I was used to coming from the s20+ as it had pretty good battery life too. No disappointments. Camera is fantastic. So used to samsungs smoothing and everything, the pixel photos look so much more true to life.
Anyway, just thought I would update and say, you were all right, it is a great phone! All of the important features and none of the fluff!