The problem is that the cloud is a simple way of achieving access from anywhere, which is what normal people want/expect. They're not going to dick around punching holes in their router's firewall, and their eyes will glaze over if they see that on the first page of the manual (they're unlikely to make it to the second page anyway).
The beef I have is not the cloud per se but the lack of anything else. My DVR, for instance, can be accessed from 'outside' but I can also connect direct over the LAN without touching the router if that's what takes my fancy. I think that's the kind of thing we should be pushing for, not just be rabidly anti-cloud.
Of course, better would be to know the protocols, etc, so one could roll one's own if desired.