To avoid the android type mess Chromeos is and was always in the iron grip of Google. That is the way to keep things secure. And I am glad it is so. Once you expose important APIs to the main google account - there will be tons of crap ChromeAPPS (not android but the chrome apps) that will be difficult to supervise (i.e) repeat of playstore.
Though painful and slow the aim is to move everything non-google to PlayStore. That way all crap is isolated into android.
For the commandline or linux person, the VM is always there.