I don't think Google dropped the ball on active digitizers, other OEMs did. From what I remember, at least two other companies (HTC and Lenovo) also tried activ

I don't think Google dropped the ball on active digitizers, other OEMs did. From what I remember, at least two other companies (HTC and Lenovo) also tried active digitizers on tablets. And soon after that (right around the original Note), Google started adding more stylus APIs in ICS. Unfortunately, the HTC and Lenovo tablets flopped (and I can say, from personal experience, the HTC Flyer deserved it - the stylus was laggy and very disappointing) and only the Note took off. It's really disappointing how many OEMs are going after the Note's screen size and how none of them are going after the active stylus (though I'm sure Samsung's Wacom investment has complicated that). My Note 2's stylus is one of the few reasons I put up with TouchWiz.