I quite agree with you there. My current setup is with the feed inside and water both in and out. I have standard open top gravity style feeders with a round feed dispense "tray" at the bottom and so to move it outside would require a new feeder or building something to put over it to prevent feed waste by weather - not because of pest concerns - *IF* I were to move it outside I would likely use a "no waste" feeder with fashioned from a bucket and PVC as that addresses the issue of weather damage to feed. Due to the amount of naturally occurring water sources around our property there is no concern of water alone being a draw to pull pests or predators into the coop or run.
As you said yourself, it is important to offer points to consider to those who are new to chicken keeping and may need to think through things to determine what is best for their flock....with that in mind, I am not "arguing" with you on any of these points, merely presenting additional points for consideration:
The issue that comes up, regarding feed/water stations inside, is for folks with the ever more popular "urban coop" setups that are too small to begin with and make the placement of food and water outside more of a benefit to the flock overall as it preserves what precious little living space there is for use by the birds. Another reason that having the water outside can be advantageous is if one has insufficient ventilation in their setup (yes, this needs to be addressed anyway - but for the sake of discussing feed/water placement I'll leave that for another time) as water inside the coop can be a major contributor to humidity in the coop, which becomes a particular concern for those in climates where concern of frostbite is an issue as, for those situations, the less moisture you can have to potentially contribute to the air, the better - I will concede the amount of moisture from the water station (especially if employing a nipple system vs. open surface area of any sort) is minimal when compared to that from chicken waste and respiration, but it is a point to consider as one place a reduction can be found. Then there is the matter that a lot of people simply have this vision of their birds getting up all hours of the night looking for a midnight snack and suffering terribly when it is not there for them - not realizing that once the birds go to roost they roost and are not going to be laying in the coop floor, dead from starvation, in the morning.
