[lhl]

While I can sympathize, the Nexus line's promise has always been shifting... Vanilla Android and timely updates were what Google were pushing for the GNex, but these days it seems to mostly be serving as vague mid-range price pressure? The only real common thread for the phones seem to be that they were primarily Google dev devices.

And while it might have been an implicit promise, sadly, I don't think long-term support (or any customer support, really) was ever much in the cards.

FWIW my Google devices (from G1 on) have all eventually migrated to CyanogenMod, where they've run better than they ever did on stock. While CM isn't rushing to 4.4 (the plan is to land 10.2/4.3 before starting work on 10.3/4.4), updates have always lasted longer than I've wanted to keep using the devices. (if you have a GNex, give CM10.2 a try. It blew my hair back. Felt like a brand new phone.)

To me, having unlocked bootloaders is a bigger selling point than stock updates...

I won't be upgrading to the Nexus 5 mainly because I don't really see much improvement over my Nexus 4 w/ CM 10.2 - I have unlocked LTE that works great w/ T-Mobile where I am, it runs quick/smoothly enough, and well, the camera apparently is still bad on the Nexus 5... (that's what the 5s is for)