They haven't made any mistakes yet! Jericho promised the end would BEGIN at the Rumble... it was delayed by Sheamus (by the way, if you don't see a correlation in a future feud for that, you're a little too stubborn and near-sighted). His plan was obviously to win the Rumble... it got postponed by Sheamus, so he comes out and asserts himself into a feud with Punk and the E played it perfectly with the whole "Jericho is in the EC match but this doesn't make much sense" perspective. Like I said, we've got 60 days to hash out what the videos meant and why, and quite frankly, I hope there's still a little unknown even after Mania so we can make a bigger story out of who is the puppetmaster for Jericho, but I'm assuming Steph will make a presence before Mania to make it known that it's her.
The lack of patience is ridiculous tho. We talk all the time about how the E either rushes things, or they just never address them again. Well, they've continued to drop hints, they built Jericho up huge with the silent promos, and he comes out on Raw with an obvious problem with Punk... which makes the storyline better imo, because it shows his problem is with Punk directly, and we don't have even the slightest speculation of whether he'll challenge the Raw or Smackdown champ... he's going after Punk and Punk only, and that's the way I said it should have been before the Rumble... having him win the Rumble would have only been good for a 1-night pop and then have him come out and attack Punk just to say he's going after the belt? I like that he has made it personal, and that's not easy to do with winning the Rumble labeled on you, especially when Kayfabe-wise, Punk could always lose the strap between now and Mania making Jericho winning the Rumble not about Punk which is obviously what they've been set on doing... so eliminate all the hype around the Rumble, have it be about these two first and foremost. That's another thing that has been missing from Championship feuds... the focus is all on the belt, very rarely on the feud itself. We understand that's what it all comes down to, but there should be a nice personal feud from time to time... hell, Edge/Cena was the last real title feud I can recall post-Punk/Cena that had something other than just the strap being the focus.