I have a Pixel myself and I have to say, it’s a good phone. It has a coherent experience and I’ve been able to customize it to my needs.
I also had a couple of phones from other OEMs (not Apple, lol) and they had more useless bloatware that was a pain, and an overall less coherent UX. I think the UX is what gets users to stay (obviously), so I do hope that more Android OEMs will focus in more on that so they can break Apple’s market domination in the US.
I’ve been using OLauncher for years now, it is extremely simple and lightweight but it works for me.