Tried Z1 yesterday.
The screen was excellent & the camera was way better than my Nexus 4's camera.
Unfortunately the size of bezel is too big. It's quite disappointing that even though Xperia Z1 is using 5" screen the overall size of it larger than Xperia Z.

Yes, I get that.But Sony could have used Xperia Z's dimension like frame.
For 5" device it is a bit large. But really nice device.

Phone manufacturers added few tens of inch for the screen size. Look where we are now. 5" screen size is the de facto standard for the high end phone. Not everyone love the big size phones.
Personally I feel like 4.7" are good enough for regular device but established OEM don't feel like making phone with that screen size anymore.

Alcatel make some decent phones. Recently they released the Idol X or something right? That is a good phone for a reasonable price (still not good as Moto G)

But interesting thing is that particular Z1 is running Android 4.4.2

1) Use voice control as much as possible
2) Develop telepathic power
3) Don't use the phone at all

On serious side, there's no concrete method to reduce the fingerprints on screen. Just wipe them once every few hours.

Yes, the main reason why Samsung is in current place is because of advertising.
But let's go to your comment on Galaxy S line. Galaxy S was designed by "borrowing" number of iPhone's design. Only major issue it had was the file system issue (RFS) which caused some lags in I/O. Otherwise it was a good attempt in high end smartphone department. Galaxy SII was excellent attempt by Samsung to produce the best all around smartphone. It has the excellent hardware with almost good software. People really started to recognize Samsung's high end smartphone with SGS II. SGS III & SGS IV is more like incremental update which made enthusiasts to start moving away from Galaxy S lineup but mainstream people still like the SGS lineup.

HTC cannot just simply point fingers at others for their epic meltdown. Their crisis is partly due to their product lineup. Some of their products before One X are just modified Desire phones. And you need to spend for advertising.

And I go for some random phones. The only mainstream device I ever used was SGS II.
My other devices, Nokia 900,Nokia N9 & Nexus 4 aren't that popular. Even now some people look at my phone (Nexus 4) & ask, "Hey, that's a nice looking China phone, how much is it?".