Your second point is moot. Even in a multi threaded single machine program you can load state and have it changed by another thread. That's bad design and not a distributed system characteristic.
Multiprocessors are distributed systems.
(See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26093556)
You're arguing your point using the definition that I argue is insufficient. We're running around in circles.
>Some of the tougher challenges in DS don't reside in this situation.
Yes, and others still do. We can definitely agree on the fact that it's an easier variant of DS.