I'm going to assume your not just being purposely obtuse and actually curious.
Google Wave was two things: a protocol and a UI. The UI was merely a way to preview the protocol. The protocol was awesome, the UI not so much. People made the assumption that the UI was what Google was pushing, when the reality was, the UI was merely a way to demonstrate the protocol. Unfortunately, both the UI and the protocol shared the same name.
I understand the distinction between the protocol and the product, but neither was "bringing together all your communication into a single pipeline". That's your wishful thinking about where they could've taken the product, and something they never showed any intention of doing. All the protocol really does is offer a way to do concurrent realtime editing of documents.
No, it was far more than that. Real time document collaboration was a small part. Real time chatting was another big part. Comment tracking on blogs. Watch the demo again and you'll see. If you think it was just document editing you are mistaken.
Google Wave was two things: a protocol and a UI. The UI was merely a way to preview the protocol. The protocol was awesome, the UI not so much. People made the assumption that the UI was what Google was pushing, when the reality was, the UI was merely a way to demonstrate the protocol. Unfortunately, both the UI and the protocol shared the same name.
Hopefully you understand the difference now. =)