My comment wasn't really meant to be a criticism so much as lament at a missed opportunity, though to convey that I should have focused more on the opportunity than the "missed" part.

The 3 launch partners all offer great services and it's fantastic to see WordPress.com with some form of eCommerce.

However, I feel Automattic are uniquely positioned to go further. They could do for eCommerce what they did for online publishing - make great open-source software accessible to a broader, less technical user base.