and if done well I think clients will be able to download only part of the state too (e.g., a directory within the state).
This is also useful for tx processing too fwiw - executions can be backed by a IPFS cluster in cloud environments and only get what it needs from IPFS for processing, than having to get it locally. Also deduplication comes for free.
That said, IPFS/IPLD is not only approach. With dehashing device we can do:
Btw, have you been talking to @Diego about Lambda , or how we can converge efforts here? I didn’t see any comments of yours there.
Bit embarrassing 
but it’s first time I read that post! must have been hiding! Been assuming we’d discuss things on Lambda workgroup