Main difference between her win over Nicole was that Nicole had a showmance.

While Nicole started off with an alliance, she remained UTR until mid-late game and started winning out comps with Corey. Steve also won out the end-game somewhat after being relatively UTR the first half of the game.

Also, not to mention had Steve not won F4 HoH by miswriting his answer at the tie-breaker, he probably goes out 4th. Nicole lost F4 HoH to Paul in the same scenario, and managed to stay over Corey.

But I think biggest difference was that Steve beat Liz, so no one questions his win. While Nicole beat Paul - and people rooting for Paul just took it out on Nicole.