Nexus were never premium. It was cheap-ish high-end SoC best demonstration of Android OS.
However, Pixels are definitely meant to be flagships, and IMO they are still not worth that name.
Anecdata: my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 fell quite literally hundred times more than my Pixel 5 (I was very clumsy/drunk by then, and got better), and is still perfectly alive , while my Pixel 5's display broke very easily (it's not even the glass that is broken, it's some internal circuitry). Maybe phones were to be tougher back then? Well, I also have a Samsung Galaxy S10e, it survived many falls just fine (well it does seem a tad worse than my Galaxy Note 2, because paint goes off where it fell).
However, Pixels are definitely meant to be flagships, and IMO they are still not worth that name.
Anecdata: my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 fell quite literally hundred times more than my Pixel 5 (I was very clumsy/drunk by then, and got better), and is still perfectly alive , while my Pixel 5's display broke very easily (it's not even the glass that is broken, it's some internal circuitry). Maybe phones were to be tougher back then? Well, I also have a Samsung Galaxy S10e, it survived many falls just fine (well it does seem a tad worse than my Galaxy Note 2, because paint goes off where it fell).