As far as I understand, most OEMs are not allowed to release QPR1 or QPR3 either (not that OEMs outside maybe Samsung would be able to). So part of it also reeks of giving Pixel benefits over phones of other manufacturers.
> As far as I understand, most OEMs are not allowed to release QPR1 or QPR3 either (not that OEMs outside maybe Samsung would be able to).
This is not true at all though. OEMs can release anything whenever they want.
the more I learn about how Google handles releases the more this looks like there being a need for anti trust actions