These are all good points. Google clearly wants to build and maintain an internal hardware development team, and it might be easier to ship this not-ideal devic

These are all good points. Google clearly wants to build and maintain an internal hardware development team, and it might be easier to ship this not-ideal device rather than risk a mass exodus of the hardware team they've been building for years. The dichotomy between (Android phones/tablets->Nexus->outside OEMs) and (CrOS laptops/tablet->Pixel->internal) is very odd though, and I wonder how confident the Pixel team is in their place at Google. Chrome OS is finding success, but the future still looks like it'll be Android. As for the Pixel C specifically, the problems are all in the software--maybe rather than making another Nexus tablet for Android N, they'll build it for the Pixel C.