Is it my imagination or did the consistency they talked about involve the same swiping action doing completely different things throughout the OS & apps?
The swiping action is a metaphor for moving things, and it seemed consistent and intuitive. You flick items away in some cases, you pull screens to rotate/pan them. This is already implemented in some mods and is totally natural.
My confusion stems from the contacts app. They swipe to get another 'page' of the UI like switching between home-screens. If it was consistent with the GMail app swiping on the individual contact should bring up more information about the item not switch to another page?