The motor x gets better life than what you prolly think it does. Multiple managers in my company have them and have had no complaints about them. It's actually a really efficient device and makes pretty good use of what it has sort of like what Apple has done.
It sounds like you want the best or literally everything and that isn't going to happen. Not one phone out there will fit your needs exactly so I guess you have to take some good with the bad. Coming from a guy who used to be Samsung only I'll say you can't go wrong with an s4 but all the bloat is most definitely a pain. Stock touchwiz is something like 7 gigs worth of os. Moto is really slim on their bloat if any and fits everything else better. It really sounds to me like Moto would work for you. I'd say try it and if you don't like it you have 14 days to return it.