Also, there do exist DNS attacks to poison DNS resolvers, and if I suspect poisoned results, I can restart my own local DNS resolver, but I can't restart UUNet's.
There's also the issue of connectivity. There may be an issue with connectivity between your ISP and UUNet, but otherwise the rest of the Internet is accessible. If I can't get to sites, I now have to take the time to determine if it's a problem locally (ISP is down), or if there's a networking issue between me and UUNet. A locally run DNS server means I can troubleshoot that particular issue quicker.