I agree for the most part, but I would not say EC2 is consistent. Maybe if you are light enough that you don't push its limits, but if you do, you see spikes. This and the fact that nodes frequently (at the scale I spin up) don't fully boot and sometimes (rarely, though) disappear.

I'm not complaining. EC2 has been incredibly valuable and I could tack on many positive adjectives - consistent just would not be one of them for me.