While I take your point, "local" is a leaky concept inside a data-center. On a fast network, "in cache on the neighboring computer" can be closer than "on my hard drive" for most purposes.
It seems like what might be ideal would be a specification language that doesn't care where things are, an implementation that tries to deal with that automagically, and a way to specify portions (to all) precisely that is checked against the high-level specification.
To further your point, you can get faster access directly via RDMA on an Infiniband network than the SATA bus can push data. The fastest SATA busses are around 16gbps I believe and you can get HDR IB switches that clock 50gbps today.
With the direction things are moving, "the data center as a computer" is absolutely the right approach.
It seems like what might be ideal would be a specification language that doesn't care where things are, an implementation that tries to deal with that automagically, and a way to specify portions (to all) precisely that is checked against the high-level specification.