The screenie above is probably a good example of how much user-agent type information Chrome makes available - particularly to Google.
I've had similar things happen using Pocket IE on a PDA, I've been sent to a localised-Google which is a couple of thousand miles away from the locale (and seat of language) that I'm in. In that case it was more than likely to do with the gateway I was using to connect - I've had it using both O2 and T-Mobile - both of their UK operations have links with gateways in other countries via their own backbones so they can route traffic in and out of their network through a gateway which might not be as busy as the nearest local.
As I say, it could be a similar issue to an extent, but it's probably down to user-agent data that you couldn't re-navigate to somewhere more suitable (didn't the 'Google.com in English' link at the bottom work btw? - that should use the cookie to prevent it from bouncing you back to the wrong place again).
I seriously doubt that Chrome was born because Google saw the need for another web-browser for technical/user-experience reasons. It was probably more to do with the fact that often shareholders and markets place a lot of a company's worth on its market share - and when you've pretty much cornered the search engine market, you probably need to look at other places to gain share and swell your nuts. As with any Google product you use (and don't get me wrong, I use Google search too), they like to collect as much data on what you're doing (even if it's pretty anonymous) as they can get away with - that's information which is pretty valuable to them; Chrome is no different. I'm pretty confident that we could probably write a script and integrate it into ASN which could, using only the information that Chrome makes available, cancel your papers and milk, and stick a bun in your wife's oven.
If you're using a Windows PC, the only excuse to not use Firefox is if and when you need to access an Exchange server with OWA (Outlook Web Access) - there's pretty ActiveX that gives it a more functional (ie closer to the standalone Outlook) GUI, other than that I honestly can't think of one. You can even re-skin it to your heart's content if you're the kind of person who likes to fix something even though it isn't broken...
Regards,
Rob.
