Many of these extra features are only available in the USA, and quite a few features only work well in English.
Anyway, my previous phone (Galaxy S8) was perfectly smooth until the very end. Of course loading times for larger programs are shorter now on my Pixel 7 but in the end it barely makes a difference (I'm not playing any ressource-heavy games). Not sure what you're doing to get a modern Android to lag.
I agree that the extra apps aren't necessary, but it's good that there actually is some competition for Google and most of them can be uninstalled (or at least could be uninstalled on my S8). And they have some pretty good software, not everything is back (I really like their launcher and gallery). Bixby can also simply be disabled, and you can bind any action to the Bixby-button (Google assistant, opening an app, ...).
But where Pixels actually are better is when it comes to the camera (or rather camera software), their photos currently are the best ones (by phone cameras) on the market (yes, I'm including Apple here) (of course Apple and Samsung aren't far behind (at a much higher price), but it's incredibly impressive what the Pixel base and A models can do at a much lower price). Their photo editing AI (or rather their chip for it) also still is better than Samsung's.
You might want to take a look at Aptera. If we're lucky they'll sell their first cars in 1-5 years