If the NSA has to ask, via court order, for each set of records it wants, I'm a lot less worried about somebody in government using the data for personal entertainment, financial gain, or political advantage.
This is an assumption (and a dangerous one, imho). From what I've read they've already optimised the hell out of getting 'court-orders' so I don't see it as a stretch to imagine that they would do the same with data stored at remote locations.
There have been stories that said companies would help with NSA access since the alternative was to have NSA machines on site. Pushing data back to the companies doesn't mean NSA would walk in and demand to install some of their own hardware.
No, I think it's more than an assumption. The number of people whose records have been seized through court order is much smaller than the the wholesale collection of every phone call record and photos of every piece of paper mail.
We literally have no idea what is done with the bulk-collected data at the NSA. As Snowden and Manning show, internal controls on supposedly sensitive data are weak. But we do know that they can't look through the data they haven't collected.
The court order, even if it's easy to get, leaves a paper trail thrice over. One with the executive branch, one with the courts, and one with whatever company has to cough up data. That won't prevent somebody sufficiently powerful and confident from getting data. But it will act as a significant deterrent to casual snooping by insiders, and also to political misuse of the system.
If the NSA has to ask, via court order, for each set of records it wants, I'm a lot less worried about somebody in government using the data for personal entertainment, financial gain, or political advantage.