Someone at Oracle did a great comparison for database-centric applications versus distributed apps showing how much faster, more stable, more effective the db-centered is some time back.  I think it is on YouTube.

It would be great to have someone do this and include newer concepts of messaging (like Kafka), apps on VM, network issues, treating the database only as a shelf vs powerful processing and scalability for masses of data.

Also, layers of complexity (distributed, messaging, ...) versus maintenance / development.