[myTouch 4G General] greenstuffs:
I had the same experience like you. I bought one of CL pretty cheap and sold it shortly after, later on i acquired 2 brand new in box Nexus S and sold it, the thing is i was never tempted to try on the phone again.

I found the same flaws you had in the Nexus S. The phone feels slow, more like a reskined vibrant with gingerbread. While i think 2.3 is nice because higher build android means always better but after using so many stock roms i don't buy the GOOGLE EXPERIENCE anymore, let me explain:

Basic things like dialer, is a pain in the a** to scroll through the call logs or contact list to call someone, yeah favorite helps but that is another extra step you have to take when making a call. HTC's dialer while overloaded it can easily search through your contact list when you touch dial their name on the numpad. Then you get the bonus of recording calls for important things you need out of the box without the need to wait for the deving team.

The stock browser sucks, no text reflow, well yes the nexus s owners will tell you to press on the zoom in/out soft buttons to reflow, again another extra steps.

Then the whole lag in a phone that is not suppossed to lag. Browser lags and the OS just doesn't feel as smooth as one hope to be, well feels smooth brand new but after some usage it starts to drag on its knees.

Well again the GOOGLE EXPERIENCE of customizing your phone the way you want is just plain old when back in the days android was in the baby stages the theme builders and custom launchers did a great job but i think that the users want something that works out of the box with higher level of customization than iOS.

I've went through 3 mytouch 4G, because my family members keept liking the phone so much that they wanted one for themselves and they are all been pleased, and none of them are android savy and cared enough about rooting or custom roms.

So in summary the nexus s is a nieche phone, the phone is for people who can put up with the shortcommings of a unfinished product and the patience of waiting for google to release updates. While new phones are released in the market every months I bet the nexus model will not have many followers after people see google released a half baked phone and OS when in a few months people can get dual core phones and LTE phones, google nexus one owners are still with their FULL GOOGLE EXPERIENCE and patiently waiting for "optimizations" from google. I just find it funny, it was a great thing with the nexus one because it was actually a great phone but the NS is just a quick wrapped product for the holiday season.

I know if I said that in the Nexus S forums, i'd get flamed because there are a bunch of nexus s owners that dropped 580 for the phone and need to somehow keep their ego high but this is how i feel about this whole nexus s phone.

So in summary if google released another phone, i'd really have to consider it because plain android is getting boring after 2 years of the same stuff from the G1, MT3G, Nexus1, G2, Nexus S...

Not to diss on custom rom builders either because custom roms takes time to build and by the time you have a very well composed rom, the phone has reached its EOL.