Terror Management seems to explain the reactions to cryonics pretty well. I've only skimmed the OP enough to want to trot out the standard explanation, so I may have missed something, but so far as I can tell the Historical Death Meme and Terror Management make the same predictions.

It is in fact absolutely unacceptable, from a simple humanitarian perspective, that something as nebulous as the HDM -- however artistic, cultural, and deeply ingrained it may be -- should ever be substituted for an actual human life.

Accepting something is the first step to changing it, so you'll have to do better than that.