That's really what some/most companies want, a platform that can run cheap, fast and easy VMs, like on-prem, but without the hassle of having to deal with the hardware and physical network part, like in the cloud. Sadly that's not the choice being offered.

I don't know, I've seen the shittiest stuff built on-prem and in cloud, and I've seem completely amazing on-prem infrastructure and cloud stuff that could not possibly be built outside AWS.