For the previous version, DE used a different wifi card (intel for DE, otherwise Broadcomm), but I don't think that's true for this latest version. I think DE and non-DE both ship with the same Qualcomm "Killer 1535"
That would have been a much bigger assault on openness, to be sure. But this is quite bad as well - it clearly shows that Google cares more about pushing Chrome itself than pushing the open, standards-based web. As the article says, when Microsoft's web demos are more standards-based than Google's, you know something is messed up.
Not so long ago I don't think Google would have done such a thing. Apparently though there are changes happening.