Re: Price and choice.
With more people going SIM only and buying the phone hardware separately it does look way overpriced compared to the likes of OnePlus 3. However, for those who buy their phones as part of a bundle with a network contract the pixel won't seem much more expensive than a top of the range Samsung, HTC, or Sony. There are still quite a lot of people in this camp - OnePlus isn't exactly a household name yet.
I think that if Google actually want to sell these (at least in the UK) they're going to have to partner with the mobile networks, not just repeat the direct sales model they used with the nexus series. It'll be interesting to see if they do.