Years ago i used marble to display *near* realtime clouds as part of a weather information workspace i created. It was really neat, with the sun shading, and the composite sat photos and earth@night blended view. Absolutely loved it. This was back in like kubuntu 11.10 or somewhere around there.

then comes update time...

the map is covered with ugly-font place names and no sun shading, etc...

where did this go? wiki says that it's coming soon... it was already here!
can anyone tell me how to get this view back? it's what i'm looking for... or a uri for the cloudlayer tile map service...

Have you tried changing the Map which is currently being displayed? It sounds like you might be using the OSM view at the moment.