I think I begin to understand why I (and maybe others) are misunderstanding Wolfram Cloud Desktop. Many at Wolfram (sales, support, answers in this forum) see it as a tool for building cloud apps only. This explains the current limitation on ParallelMap and CUDA.
However, the way the Wolfram site describes Wolfram Desktop, I perceive it as a superset of Mathematica 10. That is, all existing and new functions and additional cloud functions and other properties (monhly payments, development seats, etc.).
Perhaps the differentiation between the variants of the Wolfram Cloud offerings need to be reworked. I think that there are other properties that makes sense than moving the Cloud Desktop towards MMA 10 (mail if you are interested in my ideas).
Again, Wolfram Cloud is a great step forward for how to make Wolfram Language usable.
Local files, ok. Sounds good!
Scheduled tasks, ok. Great that the bug could be reproduced & that it will be fixed.
ParalellMap. I agree that it would be great to have cloud variant of those functions. As a buisiness model, Wolfram (or I as a "reseller") could then add value by selling faster results. (Regarding the documentation, I couldn't find the limitation you mentioned in the on-line documentation).