We make our choices. The days when I had to root my phone and use Titanium Backup to save my data I don't miss a bit. And the people I know who lost their data/contacts/photos when they lost their phones are all iphone people who elected not to use cloud backup.
Absolutely a valid argument, but I have little doubt that there will be a day when a massive phone ransomware attack happens with millions of phone held hostage with the cloud being the way the devices are exploited. It just seems to me that the more you interconnect your life with the Internet, and what is more connected than syncing your phone with it, that your risk rises exponentially to become a data breach victim.
I will personally seek to minimize the need to use the cloud except for when I am truly forced to do so out of absolute necessity. Call me overly cautious, paranoid or whatever adjective seems appropriate, but I put a great deal of effort into minimizing avoidable risks and allowing the most personal gateway to my life, my phone, to become another node of the Internet, with very little real value to me, just seems unnecessary.
I turn my data and wifi on and off for every single use on my phone. When I'm done, my phone data and wifi goes off. Yes I am still exposed through the cellular network, but I am less exposed. I do not bank on my phone, I do not even use my e-mail on my phone, I do the least possible on my phone as I believe they are extremely vulnerable devices. Hell, I still take a bunch of cash out of the bank at the start of the week and live off of it. I get funny looks when I pay cash in stores. In this way my phone is also less crucial to my daily life so should I lose it, it won't devastate my life. It would simply be inconvenient. I probably am way out to left field on this one.
As you say, we make our choices and I have been warned.