Agree entirely. That's why I go half-way and use Windows Azure's PaaS platform. Much less painful.

The company I currently work for have to full racks in two data centres each, most of which is near idle and it's a full time job for 2 people. Could do away with all the machines and all the associated administrative staff, just use a devops team and shave 40% of capex and opex as well by moving to something else.

But then again, they might not be getting nice lunches with HP and the DC vendor.