Earlier quoted context omitted.
You still need a remote shell open if you want to run make, use SCM plugins, etc, so I've never found tramp that useful. If there's a clever solution for that I'd love to hear it.
eshell interfaces pretty well with tramp (well, not over FTP obviously, but ssh) so if you're editing a file over tramp and start eshell, it'll be in the directory of the file on the remote host. you can also use tramp-y paths in eshell: cd /user@host:/home/user/
I realize I'm a bit late to reply, but thanks for the tip. The biggest problem I had was with p4 mode (we use perforce at work) and rope-mode - I didn't really feel like hacking those to get it to work with tramp. And I can keep everything open across network disconnects with screen or tmux...