Have to disagree on point 4 about Boston. I have raised VC during the boom and the bust here, it is do-able, maybe not as easy as the Valley but not impossible either. Agreed on the importance of customer traction.
Raising money in silicon valley is hard to do without being part of the silicon valley in-crowd.
Raising money in Boston is hard to do in general, but I don't think it's impossible (although I wouldn't know). I don't think we were ready to raise money when we were still in Boston, and I certainly don't blame investors for not throwing money our way at the time. We were a very different company in Boston than we were after YCombinator.