Moreover, why isn't there a stylus. I really, really, appreciate 1:sqrt(2), but without an accurate, ultra low-latency stylus you can't treat it like a pad to express ideas on.
The build looks fantastic, though.
Arrrrgh, so much promise...
Android, on the other hand, is not.
I realize that in practice many people buy ChromeOS devices primarily to run Crouton or their own bootloaded Linux build which this is a complication for, but I don't believe that is relevant to the internal politics issue.
Chrome OS is about giving you a baseline (80-90%) computing environment with as little administrative overhead as possible (easy to setup, easy to share device, no driver issues and so on). That's why Chromebooks are doing well in the education sector.
By contrast, an Android convertible like the Pixel C is about giving you a general-purpose Android environment in a different form factor.
There's some blurring around the edges (Android has a Chrome browser missing some desktop features, Chrome OS can run some popular Android apps), but they're nevertheless aiming at very different targets.
(And honestly, I think this also points out how weak Google's OSes are outside the smartphone space. Android still doesn't have the sort of high-end creation apps for tablets that iPad and Surface have, and ChromeOS doesn't have the sort of productivity apps the Windows, OS X or even Linux offer.)
An important one to denote that "Pixel" does not mean Chrome - it means Google.
The previous Pixel, even the first was the "Chromebook Pixel"
This is the "Pixel C"
One might fathom we could see a "Nexus Pixel" in the future.
Google, outside of their smartphones, makes computer products for children. I'm serious about this, I'm not being condescending to Google users, I mean actual children. Android tablets are the tablets you give to a four-year-old to occupy them on a long car trip or while you're making dinner. They're small enough for a child to hold comfortably and they're cheap enough for you to not stress out what the child is going to do with them. Chromebooks have caught on in exactly one market, education, because children can be real assholes and giving them a computer that can't actually run software eliminates a lot of the headaches that come from giving Turing-complete devices to real assholes.
But Google engineers aren't children. They want real computers. What they probably really want are MacBooks, just like everyone else. But MacBooks aren't dogfood. The Chromebook Pixel exists pretty much entirely so that Google can claim to dogfood ChromeOS and engineers can get a laptop that works for them, if you consider putting up with Ubuntu over OS X working for them. It's all an elaborate charade, in that running a high-end Chromebook Pixel and using Ubuntu through Crouton or just wiping the thing has about as much in common as the $200 Chromebooks that most ChromeOS users actually have as just giving the Google engineers their MacBooks, but Google seems to regard dogfooding as something more honored in the breach than in the observance, so that's just par for the course.
So why is this a Pixel and not a Nexus device? Well one, because Google makes it themselves. But why are they making this themselves? Or at all? Because Google engineers want a Surface or iPad Pro. And people who work for Google are about the only market for a Surface or iPad Pro knockoff running Android, because Android is such a terrible tablet ecosystem for anyone who has app needs beyond Netflix and Toca Pet Doctor and I don't see this thing moving the needle on that point. And since it's running Android and not ChromeOS you can't even get any of that Ubuntu demi-glace on it. So even by the standards of the Pixel line this is such an awkward compromise between dogfood and something edible.
Because you can already get convertible touchscreen Chromebooks (e.g. ASUS Chromebook Flip, ThinkPad Yoga 11e Chromebook). Yes, a Chrome OS Pixel C would add a detachable keyboard, but overall it would be a much smaller step from existing Chrome OS devices than the Android Pixel C is from existing Android tablets.
I know it doesn't matter for consumers as much, but it's far easier to centrally administer ChromeOS devices than Android devices, too.
NVIDIA's DirectStylus technology is supposed to be processor-based and, more importantly, uses standard touch sensors (no active digitizer required), though it does seem to require support for a faster-than-normal touch refresh rate (NVIDIA's DirectTouch).
With luck, good pen support on the Pixel C might be just a software update away...