We came to a similar conclusion as we moved from imperatively handling server state to using ReactQuery.

What I got to like the most was the small cognitive load. Other than the minimally shared UI state, everything I need to hold in working memory is close by. Not that it's novel or impossible to achieve the same through other means, but that this way of building UIs often leads to a manageable result.

It works very well in cases where the server is the source of truth, but I don't want it to feel like it is.

The creator of ReactQuery talks extensively about the philosophy behind his library in a recent PodRocket episode. [0]

0 - https://podrocket.logrocket.com/tanstack