I agree with you completely. The Galaxy Nexus was royally screwed up here in Canada, too. It wasn't available in the Play Store here. Samsung sold it through the carriers, but modified the firmware so that they, not Google, would be responsible for pushing updates. They behaved exactly as you would expect, introducing months of delay, and skipping several of the minor updates completely.
Of course consumers were never warned that they were buying anything other than "Pure Google", and many were rightly pissed. Their only recourse was to flash the original Google firmware, but that's not a reasonable thing to expect of the average consumer.
Watching it all, I was appalled. This wasn't the Nexus experience that I've been enjoying with my Nexus S. I'm so glad to see that Google was equally unimpressed. Verizon is out, Canada is back in the Play Store, and all's right with the world. And the price! Just wow.
Unless there's some giant hardware screw-up lurking, I will be recommending this phone to everyone. Alas, I fear that people won't understand the difference between an unsubsidized price and one that comes with thousands of dollars of contract commitment. $350 is more than $200, right?