What makes pipe bombs so dangerous compared to other improvised explosives?
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Nothing makes them inherently more dangerous.
An explosive device has two primary mechanisms for causing damage/injury: blast effects and fragmentation.
Blast effects are caused by the shock wave created by the rapidly expanding gasses from the explosives.
Fragmentation is material that is part of the device (primary fragmentation) or around the device (secondary fragmentation).
What you are most likely thinking of is pipe bombs made with metal pipe. These tend to break into larger, heavy chunks because most IEDs do not use high-power explosives, they use what the builder has at hand. A high power explosive will normally break the container into smaller pieces. But pipe bombs can also be made with PVC pipe.
Either way a pipe bomb has some sort of primary fragmentation. But other types of devices have the same fragmentation characteristics. Either from using a metal or solid container or by adding material to the device to create the fragmentation.
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