I use a device without an sd slot, and don't use cloud storage for media (not interested at all). The trick is to ensure you have enough storage (which does rule out a lot of handsets for me). I do however use usb-otg for my nand backups.
iTunes music with Android - yes, it works. What's the problem?
Now the SIM card I am in favour of. It means there's no link between my contract/number (the SIM) and the handset: I can just stick the SIM in a different phone and job done. The carrier aren't involved, nor does it go through a manufacturer's servers (the "software SIM" Apple were pushing the other year), and I don't need a computer to do it. If I want to change handset, or use one of old phone's in a smartphone unfriendly environment, I can just do it in a few. seconds whenever I want.
I think the "confusion" argument about sd cards is really the manufacturers' fault: partitioning internal storage in the Gingerbread days and calling part of that "/sdcard" to let the OS use it as such, then adding different kludges to support the real sd card. Yes, it would have been better if Google had adopted a unified storage model with proper sd support in addition, but there was so much hard-coded junk that would have been broken that I can see why they bottled it. So now we have this mess where the same unified storage is mounted or linked under half a dozen names to maintain compatibility with legacy stuff, and many of the people who buy devices with sd slots don't know how to get their media onto the cards or whether they are on the card or the phone (and why should they? Who in their right mind wouldn't assume that "sdcard" was the sd card?). But imo Samsung, Motorola et al played their role in creating this mess as well, because they created this "internal sd card" nonsense, which is where the mess started.
