The only reason they have it is likely for education sales, since they have no other reasonable laptop right now.
They don't care what the exact specs are as long as they can use their browser, word processing, watch netflix, and do minor photo editing. They don't know what IPS or TN are, and don't seem to care.
Hell I have a 15" mbp all spec'ed out and most of what I do is browser, terminal, netflix.
I feel like saying it isn't a viable machine because of old specs isn't necessarily true since people will still buy it.
I mean, that's the strongest decision when evaluating a new machine for me. If someone wants to replace my machine, they also need to replace the software on the machine, and I don't think the Chromebook is even aimed in the same direction as Mac OS X. It doesn't have the breadth of software, hardware, or even file interaction necessary to get through the classes I took in college, let alone my self education.
If you know exactly what you need from your machine, the chromebook may very well be sufficient. I don't think you can depend on it as a general purpose computer quite yet.