So what you're describing is essentially a world where instead of going to work and having The Mainframe that you work on, there's actually a plethora of Mainframes out there, some specialized to different tasks, some competing with others in doing a task better. You can pick and choose the ones that work best for you. With, of course, the option of running it on your reasonably powerful personal computer if that's the easiest way.

Seems like we're actually approaching a reasonable balance in the server vs client swing, rather than swinging back to another extreme.

(In case it isn't clear, I basically agree with you and think it's pretty cool.)

I always thought it would've made a great single-player game. The car-in-wasteland gameplay and engine was pretty cool and fun. But as a mmo it just sort of became same-y real fast.