Is there a "cloud" environment in which designing your application like this isn't necessary?

Google AppEngine

With GAE you have to write your application from the ground up to use Google's APIs and the design they force upon you. I'm not sure it's a fair comparison; in either situation you have to be cognizant of the environment your application will be running in if you want to take advantage of the environment.

"a "true" cloud would just handle all that stuff transparently."

Be wary of leaky abstractions.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.htm...