You can buy a refurbished Pixel 5 for less than 200$. Great screen, great camera, 5G, the works. It's definitely not an "outdated" device, and it runs Graphene or Lineage with minimal hassle.
The Pixel 8 and 8a aren't that expensive either. And keep in mind that they are supported until 2030 and 2031 respectively. [1] They not only receive security updates for 7 years, instead of the 5 years for previous Pixel generations, but also have stronger hardware security, by implementing the ARM memory tagging extension. [2]
More seriously: I believe many refurbished resellers do swap a new battery on the higher quality tiers.
You can also use 2 SIMs on a Pixel by using an eSIM.
Also, the basic premise is that you can buy a decent Pixel phone for an affordable price, not that it has the very best price/value out of any device. I would also wager that the Pixel 8 has massively better cameras than a Samsung A16, so not apples to oranges.