I agree with most of your points, but:
> A tax system that is reasonably simple, not disastrously onerous, and in many ways optimized for entrepreneurs (for instance, the differing taxation schemes offered for salary versus distributions, or the ease of deducting business expenses).
Is objectively wrong. The US tax code was over 71,000 pages last I checked (in 2009 or so), and that's just the federal part. I have dealt with taxes in several jurisdictions, personal and business - and the US is by far the most onerous, most complicated among them. The business part is a little simpler than the personal part, but both are batsh*t crazy when compared to a lot of other places.
The differing taxation scheme seem to be quite universal these days (I don't know if historically this wasn't the case). The rates are effectively higher in the US, though it seems if you are big enough you can use loopholes to counter that.
The VAT common in Europe is onerous at the personal level (roughly comparable to state/city sales tax, although usually higher), but is almost invisible at the business level - "VAT" stands for "Value Added Tax" - it only gets paid on the added value. If my business buys laptops and supplies them to a customer, that customer pays VAT but I do not (whereas US style sales tax gets collected twice in this case). Expenses seem to be just as easily deductible, if not easier.
Furthermore, the US is actively hostile towards anyone who does anything financially outside the US. Got a bank account outside the US? You have a lot of onerous reporting to do (FBAR/FATCA) with very steep penalties for non compliance. Your company has such an account, and you have signing rights? You are still personally liable with the same steep penalties. Onerous does not begin to describe this.
If you're already a US Tax Payer living in the US (by being a citizen or a permanent resident), the US is probably the best place for you to do business in. If you are not yet subject to the craziness that is the US Tax Code, you should factor a few tens of thousands of USD per year for proper reporting, which might make it a less desirable place.