So we should develop software on a development server. What a crazy new idea.
There's these new things called "remote X11 displays" that might revolutionize the way we work on remote servers from local computers. If only it ran in a browser[1], though!
Cloud9 does at least have an offline mode; so one isn't totally hosed if you're not connected or they go down. Granted, you can't actually run much, but it's still better than your entire display locking up if the network flakes out.