Could you enlighten me as to what WP Engine does differently from Automattic that you can't buy from them? Looking at the WP Engine, it's the exact same thing, with the numbers filed off, as Automattic offers.
We shouldn't overrate a lot of those features, because I think they were pretty obvious things to want. But WPEngine was, afaik, the first to market with all of the above in a pretty-cheap and seamless package.
But I think you are right, the features you listed naturally contributed and strengthened those needs.
Like Wordpress.com in hindsight seems to offer it, but its not clear to me that I'm their customer target.