I get all of what you're saying, but I also don't understand the assumption that Nest was going to turn into a complete home automation company that could hand you all the tools you needed for...well...an automated home.

That's what bothers me here. It was already clear that Nest had no intention of doing that. They were partnering up with a systems integration company. If you thought installing past home automation products in your various apartments was difficult, Nest didn't have a plan to improve that for you. If anything, it would be worse because you'd have to hire a company to do it for you, pay their overhead, and rely on whatever solution they installed for you.

Again, I have no idea what Google is going to do with Nest. I only have a small idea of what Nest would have done on their own, and it wasn't what you seem to be thinking, though I may not understand what you were expecting out of them.