Since your very anti Apple post (Android fanboy obviously) was posted on a Macrumors forum, I'll take the opportunity to answer this as an... Apple fanboy.
I didn't even consider the competition because I've used the competition - every year or two I make a point to use an Android phone for a day or two to make sure I'm making the right decision for myself.
So my thought process was:
I owned the 6+. Loved that phone, but the 1GB of ram was getting old, I'd go to Hangouts, talk, then open another app, then by the time I'd go back to hangouts a reload was necessary.
6s+ had the faster CPU and more ram and a rear camera mp bump from 8 to 12 MP. As someone who takes many many photos, this was important to me. The CPU difference between the A8 and A9 was very noticeable for me.
I then went to the 8+ because of the two cameras (telephoto lens). The camera was the main reason but the extra gig of ram wasn't bad either. The increase of storage to 256GB was of interest to me as well.
I was intending on keeping this phone for 2-3 years but when the Xs MAX was introduced I went with that phone because of the 512 GB storage (I could finally put my entire photo library on my phone) - OLED screen - reading on this has been amazing - I read books and books on my phone. I love it. (1920 x 1080 vs 2688 x 1242). The 4GB of ram interested me for future proofing, but more was the IS on the telephoto lens and an f stop of 2.4 on the telephoto vs the 8+'s 2.8 and no IS (just on wide angle).
Yeah the price is a bit painful, but my wife and I will be keeping our phones for 3 years easy. We normally do 2 as we have for our last phones (6+, 6s+). 8+ was only 1 year.
An impulse buy? I use my phone for hours every day. I read books on it. I used to take thousands of photos a month on it (getting older with less time now). I communicate with family on it. It is a huge part of my life as well as my family's lives.
