Well, not ready to throw in the towel yet. The first engine gave me such good service for so long with zero maintenance, I'm finding it hard to accept. I've just got my second engine into service and it has about 2 gallons through it. That's not a lot of flights to make any judgements yet.
If I was to get into the electric deal, I would get a crs to go with it. I only flew one notable flight on a well set up model and I had better speed control than anything I've ever flown. Twin props push back much more air and do so at a slower speed, which means thrust is significantly greater. Ideally, we should develop a crs for IC. It's really the better propulsion system for what we do.
Contra also has it's problems to overcome. But just like everything else, a good set up works well.