There are advantages to distributed infrastructure as well! You mentioned one of the biggest disadvantages.
I am thinking along the line of:
- You can just do it / upgrade it etc
- Robust against central failures for various reasons
- Resistant to those in charge of centralized infrastructure abusing their monopoly
Plug-in solar can't do 2 by itself, and it doesn't really do 3 either.
Utility solar is also distributed if there is enough of it installed to matter for discussion. A single installation is such a tiny share of the electric load that we can ignore if for all reasons you care about distributed. (or care about solar for that matter - it is a drop in the ocean for the environment)