I'm still waiting for more general availability of the Samsung 3G Chromebook.

My guess about the Pixel?
1. It ups the ante for Chromebooks, encouraging Samsung and Asus to take their Chromebooks further up the food chain. It also helps them by establishing that Chromebooks aren't only for those who can't afford a real computer.
2. They needed an engineering platform for a high-performance Chromebook and figured out it might be cheaper to bring it through retail than to build hundreds or thousands engineering prototypes for their engineers. Does anyone know if the SDK runs on a Chromebook?
3. Maybe there's hidden value in finding out who buys these things and selling Adwords to affluent Chromophiles?

I have to admit that 90% of my use of my MacBook Air is browsing in Chrome or using Chrome apps like Google docs.