I don't think that's quite right. While it's true that Honeycomb was a more tablet centric rendition of the Android UI, it was meant to be a transitional stopgap. Ice Cream Sandwich was meant to unify the phone and tablet UIs into one cohesive unit, which Jellybean builds upon. I think Google realized that you don't need a UI created specifically for a tablet; you simply need apps that can take advantage of the additional real estate.
To the second part of your post, people will buy tablets because phones will naturally, and arguably have, top out at a certain size. 5" has proven to be the upper limit for most people, with 4.3 to 4.7" being the most comfortable/desirable. Moreover, if you're serious about having a dedicated media consumption device, a tablet is going to do a lot more for you than your phone. Then there's the practical side of actually needing your phone to be a phone, thereby preventing it from being used as a dedicated media device.
I do believe we'll still a Nexus smartphone this year though. I don't see Google moving away from that, not with every other Android manufacturer releasing a top end smartphone and tablet each year, to say nothing of Apple.