>Light is not just on/off, it's a million different shades and intensities, some more appropriate depending on the time of day.

Yea so you install one of these http://www.homedepot.com/b/Electrical-Dimmers-Switches-Outle...

>Try to imagine a house where there's a thousand different machines just there to make your life nicer.

Now try to imagine all the gaping security holes emanating from your house. And oh man it's gonna suck when the remote server goes down and your thermostat can't phone home so you're stuck at 55F during the winter