Explains what was going on, if the cloud operation appeared to be normal to avast! team, then they were not aware of a problem. Thanks to spywar, things started to roll along. Since all streaming updates are rolled into the next vps update, really was not worried.
But as RejZoR pointed out, File Reputation may well be linked to streaming update, and if that has no connection, then FR does not either. As I have the free version, FR not really relevant as I cannot run the avast! sandbox, so FR possibly not running to the cloud to check files as I run them, really is of no value.
It may be that it was running all along, and establishing connections when it needed to, but that feature is not really available in the free version. I doubt anyone was monitoring this behavior whilst all this was going on.
We (I) got along just fine before version 7, and so as long as the main vps's come in, I really do not worry.