I'm not a nuclear physicist but in what way is a nuclear reactor equivalent to a nuke ? AFAIK reactors can't actually reach the critical level that's required to create a nuclear explosion - it's a completely different design, different isotope concentration, so the biggest threat is exposure to radioactive materials and maybe heat/pressure explosion. And 4S has passive safety mechanisms so sabotage would have to be manual, chain sabotage would be impossible, especially if they were properly monitored.
The biggest safety concern I've heard is that you could use them to create small quantities of weapons grade plutonium, but I guess if you know how to do that you could get it in other ways.
They aren't; that's what people will think of them as though. It's taken us this long to actually build a new plant period; it'll be a while longer before people are convinced it's safe to live across the street from one.
This contradicts what you said in your first post: "they're small nukes, but they're still nukes. (and if they're networked, could be even worse than a centralized plant)"
What is the issue? That they are dangerous or that people perceive them to be?
"Nuke", in this case, was being used as a shorter way to say "nuclear reactor". Nuclear reactors are, of course, completely different from nuclear bombs.
The biggest safety concern I've heard is that you could use them to create small quantities of weapons grade plutonium, but I guess if you know how to do that you could get it in other ways.