Ah, we can certainly have some fun here.

You left off some important qualifiers - I did not say that pursuit of imperial policies was categorically contrary to local interests. I said that "often directly contrary to local interests." This was mainly in reference to military and economic policies (the milking aspect). Note POLICIES, not GOVERNMENTS. The effects of being forced to adhere to the continental system were directly contrary to the interests of all of the major trading regions across Europe. The effects of being forced to levy increasing numbers of conscripts to supply more and more troops to fight wars against France's enemies was directly contrary to the local interests of most of the satellite states. Some, certainly, had interests that aligned more closely with the French - for example, the Poles, but even there (as the Poles themselves noted) why should Polish lives be spent in Spain? In the end there was a reason why French troops had to occupy the coastal regions and eventually France annexed the whole of the north sea coast - these countries did not willingly adhere to French economic policies because it was detrimental to their own interests to do so. But pursuing a foreign policy that was independent of Paris was not a choice they were allowed to make.

Of course it is possible to make the macro argument that what was good for France was good for the empire, but I would make the counter-argument that the smaller states across Europe could only benefit from a balance of power among the major powers, that being a vassal to any dominant European uber-state ran contrary to their interests. Which might lead to the role of the zollverein in creating an economic unity that led to political unification, etc. - the 19th century unifications based on common economic interests vs. the Napoleonic economic disunity that shook apart an empire that had come together over common political/diplomatic interests. [5 page essays on this will be due when we come back from winter break, class]

If you would like to play the which government is better, were the Dutch better off with an elected republican government or with Louis Bonaparte as king, or ruled direclt from Paris? Or the Hanseatic towns which had been largely autonomous free cities under the empire, were they better off being absorbed into a French state and governed from Paris? Some of the new governments were better, some were worse, many just changed one set of rulers for another. Others kept the same governments (Bavaria, Saxony, etc) but had obligations to support the Napoleonic empire that were more onerous than those imposed by their previous empire. I agree, making moral judgements over which government was better is a matter of opinion and will vary case by case and date by date. For the most part, the new French-imposed governments were much more efficient, but the efficiency in some cases was a double-edged sword. But as noted, I wasn't talking about governments. I was talking about the policies these governments were forced to pursue by the imperial authority in Paris.

So to reduce this to a simplistic "Napoleon bad" sweeps under the rug the fact that the impositions demanded by the empire produced negative effects locally, which I think you agree with. While patriotic sentiment might counterbalance the hardships for some/many/most Frenchmen, what was in it for the foreigners? The result was an increasing alienation among the satellite states from an alliance/alignment that most had joined more or less willingly - or How Napoleon ended his honeymoon with the empire.