Pretty much on the same page as you are. They're buying in white-label zigbee/zwave stuff and then doing work to try and integrate these various devices at the operation level, vs at any lower level. This does nothing to help enable new classes of device, it just helps devices out there already may possibly get easier to use (though that remains to be seen).

It's been done many times before, though not at the same price point. eg Micasaverde does this for Zwave/Insteon/etc.