The main reason is that only a subset of all our datasets are actually exposed in Looker, and Amundsen would have applicability to other data sources - certain production semi-OLAP DBs, the future hive-on-S3 deployment... that we have no plans to expose in Looker at all.
That said I haven't looked closely at how far we could go with Looker, I'll check it out.
I see. We actually develop a BI tool similar to Looker but also want to implement a data catalog feature embedded into it. I'm familiar with Amundsen but I believe that this kind of tool needs to have tight integration with the BI tool and Amundsen still has a way in terms of integrations. (searching among saved reports, dashboards and collaboration with teams, etc.). Otherwise, using spreadsheets is still easier and maintainable.
I would love to hear the features that you would need in a data catalog system.