Pixel Happy Medium

Keep the design, dial the screen back to a nice 1080p panel, bump intel for high end ARM, USB 3 and Bluetooth 4
They could have made a killer, premium chromebook, with great battery life that could be thinner and much more of a "deal" around or below $999
I'm guessing that chromeOS is about to step its game up pretty big, and the Corei5 will be necessary to push it all fluidly to their absurdly high res panel choice
I'd buy one, but that battery life is shite for a browserOS based laptop that only pushes the envelope with its screen