I don’t think this is about edge cases but SPA have been abused. Imagine using google docs as a server rendered experience. Or any of the apps in iCloud.com. There are use cases where it makes sense and use cases where it doesn’t.
Most of your complaints are about poor implementation but if a large percentage of people poorly implement SPA then it still looks bad. I used to say you could make a very native experience with a hybrid web app for mobile. While this is absolutely true, most people don’t pull it off so I get the critism.
Exactly. In many places slow networks are the problem, and quick spa's give a great user experience comparatively. The biggest lag in Google Docs is when it has to refresh from the server, and then it's like using windows on a 386.
I don't think PWA offline storage is anywhere reliable or predictable enough to be advertised as an actual benefit. It's essentially a fancy cache at this point:
Most of your complaints are about poor implementation but if a large percentage of people poorly implement SPA then it still looks bad. I used to say you could make a very native experience with a hybrid web app for mobile. While this is absolutely true, most people don’t pull it off so I get the critism.