Having an .so in your app doesn't mean the majority of work in your app is NDK work. And it's often limited to just one or two team members while the rest are working on the java side of the app. You also don't need the NDK at all to include an .so in your app. You only need the NDK to build the .so. When it comes to regular android java work (which is the fair share of android development, as google obviously knows from anonymous statistics) - Android Studio takes eclipse hands down.

As for the google rant, I'm not a google employee, but I think their work has been amazing. Are there improvements I'd like to see? of course. But I've never understood how easy it is for people to trash talk the work of others given an anonymous nickname online.