On several points I agree with the OP on the desirability of "universal computing". For more, I've long thought of most of the concerns in the OP and have not been and still am not much concerned: Why not?
=== No Smartphones
For all the threats of smartphones, I avoid them -- I don't have a smartphone. My phone is an old Bell touch tone desk set connected to essentially a land line.
I saw some threats of smartphones and didn't like the cost to buy, cost of usage, bad keyboard, small screen, and the general inability to write and run my software, old and new.
=== Digital Appliances
For threats of digital appliances, devices, from, say, Amazon, I don't have any. No way do I want some digital appliance listening to everything I say.
=== The Cloud
I don't trust the cloud. I make no direct use of the cloud. So the cloud is not a threat or cost to me. And I don't have to do mud wrestling with their poor or missing documentation on how their services work. What they are offering, no thanks. Not even for free. And whatever they say about reliability, security, or functionality, I don't believe it.
=== Encryption
For threats of encryption, if the situation gets serious, say, for my email, then I will make use of PGP (pretty good privacy). So, I will have encryption under my control that Apple, etc. can't do anything about. And I won't have to worry about back doors.
There was a reason PGP was open source -- to keep a big power, government, company, from getting control over encryption, putting in back doors, etc. I like the idea of being able to control my own encryption.
=== Text and Console Windows
To me, the main data I work with is just text, the standard ASCII character set. And my main user interface is text in console windows. A big reason is that it is easy to automate the use of text in console windows.
So, in particular, I make minimal use of the Microsoft user interface idea of on-screen direct manipulation graphical user interfaces (GUI). I never liked the idea of a GUI -- insults me as a user; is an interface I essentially can't program; gives output tough to process further.
In one sense, important to me, a GUI is nearly always a big step backwards; it has me do something once; but to do it 200 times I have to do it 200 times as I do it once. Instead, I want to automate doing that 200 times. E.g., I had a list of about 300 URLs and wanted to download them all. So I used my text editor KEDIT to develop a REXX script to call the program CURL 300 times and then ran the script in a console window and then processed the 300 downloaded files with KEDIT. No use of GUIs. For such work, usually GUIs are useless.
=== Files
I'm totally in love with Microsoft's NTFS (new technology file system or some such) file system. I would like better documentation on the file and directory (I HATE Apple introducing the word folder) attributes such as system, hidden, archive, etc. and on locking and concurrency.
E.g., for handling those 300 files, do that in a subdirectory -- don't let other files get in the way and can copy, delete, etc. easily.
=== Manipulating the Text
Since I work with text, I need good tools for handling text, and my most important computing tools are the text editor KEDIT, its macro language KEXX, the scripting language REXX, the D. Knuth mathematical word processing TeX (I write TeX but no LaTeX), a spell checker ASPELL that comes with the TeX distribution I use, the .NET languages and object library, for some important work an old Watcom Fortran compiler (with the very nice IBM linear programming package OSL, optimization subroutine library).
So, I want good tools and if necessary write my own and don't want little apps doing things for and/or to me. Really, so far I have no apps at all.
=== Version of Windows?
Since I like text and console windows so much, the stuff Microsoft added to Windows 7 Professional to get to Window 10 Home Edition I don't want. I just like that version of Windows 7. I can think of some improvements I would like a lot, but none of those are in Windows 10.
For what Apple wants me to use, no way, not a chance, never.
=== Good Windows
To me, one of the best things about any of the versions of Windows is that they are still good to great places to run old command line software. E.g., KEDIT goes back to PC/DOS, OS/2, Windows 95, ..., Windows 7, Windows 10.
=== Typing for Developing
I used KEDIT with KEXX and REXX to develop the software for the Web site of my startup, 24,000 .NET programming language statements in 100,000 lines of typing (lots of good comments with some little KEDIT macros to ease using documentation, etc.).
Visual Studio seems to be intended to do what I do with KEDIT -- so far I prefer KEDIT to Visual Studio. E.g., Visual Studio is part of the long standing Microsoft idea of GUIs, and I just reject that as a big step backwards. I had no trouble at all using KEDIT, etc. to develop that software. The problems were, e.g., bad documentation for SQL Server that made getting a connection string a solid week of mud wrestling. Finally someone in Microsoft's SQL Server organization solved the problem.
=== Documentation or Experiments
Part of the Microsoft, Apple GUI approach is no real documentation, e.g., nothing like what was written by Mike Cowlishaw for REXX or by D. Knuth for TeX, and, instead, learn just by experimentation. I don't like that experimentation -- e.g., Windows 10 has some huge number of special keystrokes that do things, and I still have no knowledge of what those keystrokes are or do. I encounter those keystrokes by accident; some windows pop up, and I work to close them ASAP since whatever they are I know I want nothing to do with them. I don't like undocumented tools.
=== No, I Don't Want That
Generally what the Apple, Microsoft people and their app developers have in mind to please me just makes me angry. What they are offering me, I don't want. To me their work just gets in the way of my work; I hate their work and their assumptions about my work.
So, on several points I agree with the OP on "universal computing". If Microsoft will keep console windows and let me run old software, I will be happy. To make me happier, they can do better on documentation and tools for common tasks in system management. E.g., I'd like better means of backup and restore. For more, they can have fewer bugs and security problems. For more, I would like some good documentation for Microsoft's Power Shell. For the rest of the industry, I wish I could get a keyboard as good as IBM shipped with their PC/AT.