Got my Vera yesterday. Initial setup was great, and it was nice to be in the browser. I will say that the thermostat control leaves more to be desired, and UI7 has some weird behavior when changing setpoints, or turning on lights. You press a button and it kinda jitters around until it gets a confirmation from the device. So setting a setpoint from 70 to 72 takes a while with each button press.
However, today (less than 1 day of ownership), I can’t log into the device. Local IP access shows me my devices and allows me to control them, but I can’t do anything else. When I go to log in,it sends me to the cloud and it says my hub is offline. If my hub is offline, then how am I able to access it locally? Hmmm 
On top of that, the scheduling kinda sucks when it comes to thermostat controls (can’t set separate cooling setpoints vs heating setpoints, etc.). Hey - at least Vera has something in place. ST I’d have to buy a SmartApp to get thermostat scheduling.
I didn’t want to believe the bad reviews, but I’m experiencing some of them… so I think I might put it back in the box.
If anyone from SmartThings is listening, I’m hoping they understand that people would like a local non-cloud option. Something that can run on a Raspberry Pi (or whatever branded OEM model ST gets), that has local processing, local scheduling, and only use the cloud for DDNS access or something. I’d buy that up in a second.