I rather concur with your ideas here, perhaps subject to a few small and unimportant quibbles esentailly over issues of syntax.

But, I ask you to reconsider this statement :
"contrary to local interests "

Do we not first have to make an intensely value-laden decision of what was in the local country's interest if we can then say that imperial policy was counter to this ? Are we not "picking sides" or making moral judgements not too far off from the oft-repeated "N is bad". ?

Was it "in the local peoples interest" to have a Bourbon monarch rule Naples, instead of its inclusion in the Empire ?
Were the lands of Westpahlia or Lucca governed in such a way as to grow the local interests (other than those of the local dynasts) ?
Were the Austrians better suzzereins over northern Italy than the French and Italian imperials ?
Were the prior régimes any more legitimate (as in ruling with the consent of the governed) than the French imperial régime ?

If we cannot answer these questions fairly and clearly in favor of the prior régimes, without resorting to some more eloquent expression that essentially reduces to "N is bad", then I find it hard to see the imperial policies as "contrary to local interests ".

Your comments, please ?