> ChromeOS is a joke if you are offline or need to do any local work.

I used to feel that way until I learned that recent Chromebooks can run Android apps and come with a Linux in a VM, and I am now a very happy Chromebook user. All the software I need is a browser, Emacs, git, SBCL, LaTeX and a few standard Unix tools: I use Chrome and run everything else in the Linux VM.

(And you're right that the file browser is very limited, fortunately I only need it ocasionally to move files between the Linux VM and the ChromeOS file system).