I think Nike avoided having Bekele in there for a reason, personally. Bekele even said he wasn't asked to be included in an interview, which I found puzzling.
This type of "race" was set up differently than any others in the sense that they are trying to stay on a pace as long as possible. In normal WR attempts, the pacers fall off half to 3/4 of the race. I am wondering if Nike sensed that Kipchoge was better off just focusing on sitting behind the leaders "relaxed", rather than having someone formidable also running with him. It was pretty obvious from the get-go that Nike didn't pick 3 equal candidates.
It seemed way more cool to have Bekele vs Kipchoge duke it out in this style of competition but someone didn't even bother calling him. Maybe he changed his number?? Just kidding, but really... It's like having a Slam Dunk contest and not even inviting LeBron James.
Also, my opinion on the race is that it proved two things
1) the air makes a really big difference! I had to look all this stuff up afterwards, but a few old studies in the Lore of Distance Running (via google) says drafting saves around 3-4 mins in a marathon at WR pace. Not sure how accurate that is, but it may not be that far off. While we've seen pacing help, due to the limits of the rules, the pacers could never take them that fast and that far in normal racing. Even in Nike's Sub-2 attempt, not one American pacer could break 1hr in the HM. So yes, pacing is a big help.
2) "Walls" don't exist as we thought in the best marathoner. The concept of hitting a wall or burning too much glycogen too quickly might have to go away now, someone just ran 4:36 pace for 2 straight hours, regardless of the pacing help.