Google Pixel C: "Quad Core Tegra X1"

With Chrome OS the GPU power is turned to waste, and what can you say? that it's a bit faster and has a bit more RAM than low end Chrome OS computer that does the same thing. (If that : one of the first Chromebooks had lowest end 17-watt Sandy Bridge and a So-DIMM slot to bump the RAM to 6GB or 10GB)

Well, worse than that : if you put Chrome OS on a tablet, you're asking the devs to build web applications for tablets instead of Android applications. What next a Chrome OS phone? A posthumous victory for Firefox OS.
That said Android is both an asset and a liability for Google. It's so widespread that the only thing that compares is the hold that Windows 9x/XP/7 had, but it and its apps have to cater to the low end smartphone.
Microsoft tried their thing, but I guess people buy a Windows tablet or a Surface for the ability to run Win32 apps (such as a full Photoshop paid for or not, or any of myriads of desktop software, and accessorily use some of the built-in tablet stuff)

I think the question of what OS or software to run on such tablets is not settled and might not ever be. Perhaps you will ever only to get to run desktop apps, smartphone apps or of course a web browser but not "tablet apps".

Can you run Ubuntu on the pixel, or other linux? There are some tablet development there, and it is also a natural place for doing "convergence", full desktop (including with external display/peripherals). Tegra K1 was first demoed on Ubuntu 12.04. Give a way to boot Shield, Pixel with arbitrary linux (and both open and closed source nvidia drivers) then a number of geeks will find interest in that, even though it would be realistic to expect 1% market share at best.