It's far from the most expensive offering, starting at £299 unlocked I believe. Compared to a 16GB unlocked iPhone 5S at £549, which is likely to be replaced by an iPhone 6 offering in the next few months - so hardly a selling point.
OP's stated he's upgrading, hasn't mentioned any budget restriction, has mentioned he doesn't want Samsung or Blackberry, had a poor previous experience with HTC and fancies a change from Sony.
That leaves many options, including Apple, Nokia and the aforementioned Nexus 5 (which I believe is the only Google handset they offer currently?). So the N5 meets all those criteria posted as far as I can see, and is widely regarded to be a decent handset.
Perhaps a cracked HTC Desire is what he's after, but I can't see how it more closely meets requirements from the first post than a Nexus 5 does...