Let's go into a few points:
Costs. My state has the opposite (corps more expensive than LLCs), So this is a YMMV thing.
>Why is it a ripoff, reason number 2? When you form an LLC you have to spend lots of time with your lawyer hashing out things like what happens to the company when you die
It is almost trivial to change the LLC operating agreement. Sure, once you start to get into it, you can get more complex, but this again, is something you can do easily again later once you're sure you are sticking with this thing.
>Why is it a ripoff, reason number 3? The reason your tax guy is telling you it's a good deal is because of the pass through loss/profit which falls through to you
Only for 1 of the three ways to do LLCs. You can do LLCs as a disregarded entity (what you're talking about, which is simple as hell, but has a generally higher tax burden). You can elect to treat your LLC as a C-Corp for federal tax purposes (and state). This, for tax purposes, is basically a C corp, with all that matters under the tax law. You can elect to treat your LLC as a S-Corp (what I do). This allows you to do damn near everything you can as an actual S-Corp with oodles more flexibility, generally smaller filing fees, and a much faster setup with no annual meeting, etc, requirements.
>Now for the really big reason: if you make a profit with an LLC, you will pay self-employment tax. If you take profits with an S-corp it is dividend income (or share buybacks, etc).
Only if it's a disregarded entity. You do not pay self employment tax with a LLC taking a S-Corp election, you pay active owners a salary(on which you pay SS and medicare) and any other income is reported on schedule K (which does not trigger self employment tax; self employment tax is a stand in for SS and Medicare taxes).
> You WILL pay more taxes using an LLC than an S-corp simply because you have far less flexibility owing to the fact that the corp is a separate legal entity while that is an extreme grey area for an LLC.
No it's not. LLCs are better statutorily defined than corporations actually. They are quite clearly defined. Generally speaking, disregarded entities (what you apparently had) are considerably closer to a sole proprietorship than S-Corp and C-Corp elected LLCs. This is why I say "You should probably be doing a S or C corp LLC".
>Your average CPA is useless when talking about these topics,
You need to find a small business CPA. They know tons about this. If you go to an estate planning expert, don't expect tons of tricks in the small business department. CPAs have specialties just like coders do. You wouldn't have your ruby guru write your C microcontroller code. Same deal with accountants. I've been to two small business CPAs who both sung "S-Corp election of a LCC" from the top of the highest mountains.