Have you tried it? I was skeptical too until I built a few apps with it. The learning curve is easier than it seems (I started by modifying the examples) and it really does cut down on development time - turns out much of modern web programming revolves around network management and its associated complexities.

> Does the tech have any local caching options to make this a little more sane for a worst case an end user?

This is trivially solved in Electric- as long as you hold onto a client-side handle of the data, it won't be unmounted.