Idk. All I got is two people who said they own a Pixel 8/9. But I don't think that's Lemmy's obsession with expensive phones... It's more due to the amount of computer nerds here. A Google Pixel combined with GrapheneOS used to be popular amongst that kind of people. Because it was one of the select few options to get rid of a good amount of all the spying and tracking by Google. In the future we'll get the cooperation with Motorola. Maybe that's going to provide us with more options. But they said "high-end smartphones" so it probably means just more expensive phones.

You do you. Just pick whatever phone satisfies your requirements and you'll be fine. I usually pay something like 250-330€ for my phones and they last me about 5 years. I think that's an acceptable price. But I wouldn't pay that much for an additional phone, either.

(And by the way, a flagship phone is like 1000 bucks these days. Crazy pile of money for something like a phone, if you ask me.)