Every track and club is different. The tracks in my city are predominantly electric, a typical 10-race rotation only one is nitro, and sometimes for novelty alone (not a serious race). It ultimately just comes down to what people are racing, what they're comfortable racing, what they've grown up on, etc. The skills and techniques, especially for off-road, are far different, a driver who was raised on nitros has to re-learn throttle control and acceleration out of the corners if he's to compete with seasoned drivers.

Reliability-wise, electric can be very good, but you have to know what you're doing. The technology to make it reliable, and to allow it to run side-by-side with the nitros (or even surpass them) has been there for the last several years, but the rules and the racing organizations (ie. ROAR) had designs to keep that technology off the track and keep electric relegated to a 'little sister' position next to nitro. It wasn't until the last year or two when most clubs started going by their own rules that ROAR's board turned over, the new board capitulated and allow the techs that they had made illegal just one year before.

Are you getting electric 1/8th scale 4wd buggy drivers yet?