I never really got comfortable with TRAMP mode. Maybe I'm just too set in my ways, but I like to navigate directories from the shell, for the most part, and issue commands (including invoking editors) from the shell as well.
There some exceptions, such as when I use Midnight Commander to navigate and perform some common operations, but for the most part I like the shell. (By the way, I know emacs has dired mode, but that's something else I haven't invested the time to customize to my liking, and until I do, it will be very underpowered and unintuitive compared to Midnight Commander, for me).
I do use Helm in my local emacs sessions (though mostly just in the current directory, or for functions other than file-finding), and like it, for the most part -- except for the tons of bizarre and inconsistent keyboard commands, and don't like that it's super slow for me for some reason. I really can't wait for Emacs to move to Scheme, so hopefully its performance can greatly improve as a result.