The Real World
Many on this forum, and many reviewers don't seem capable of stepping back for a moment and seeing the world as it is.
So, here I am to enlighten.
If you look at you average "young person", they are already at a point where they don't need much "local storage". Most of what they do is ALREADY in the "cloud".
Look at the iPhone. Hate it or not, it's very popular. The iPhone doesn't have a file explorer. While it does have local storage, many use very little of it, and those that do use the local storage as a mirror of what's in the cloud (your iTunes library).
As for young people using their laptops, almost EVERYTHING they do is online, they don't use an email client, they use MSN or Yahoo mail. Photos/videos? Facebook and Youtube. The only time they use local storage is when they're uploading something to an online album.
I myself am an old codger compared to them, and yet most of what I do isn't local. While I don't use "the cloud" as much, I do remotely connect to my home servers for most of what I do. Think of it as a private cloud. The laptops/desktops I use don't really contain much data, it's all centrally stored on my server, so when I'm on the other side of the planet a quick VPN login and I've got all my email, docs and media right there.
My cell phone? Only thing I have stored on that that isn't in the cloud are the demos videos my phone came with.
While CromeOS is very "limiting" to some here, for the masses it offers pretty much exactly what they want a computer for these days: a portal to their data.
TTYL