Good post!

Ad 2.: Ok, that's right but rather a general prerequisite, so I would remove it from the list.

Ad 3.: Yes, this is recommended.

4. and 5. are good steps but optional and should be done in later stages otherwise it's typical premature optimization

6. Optional you could use hosted solution like MongoHQ

7. Just install and use Git??

8. DDOS defense? There's no standard recipe

> I can see why you would want an automated PaaS to take care of all these things for you.

I agree with you that automated hosting is nice but somehow the bizmodel doesn't seem to appeal. But again, compare this to the Rails world: How many automated hosters do you see there? Not many more.