Well, theoretically with a good system it handles those steps. For instance when I save in eclipse it is immediately saved to the remote system as well, but yes, it can be a bit of a pain.

I tried running eclipse over remote X (Cygwin's X is better than Exceed and free, btw) but it was dog slow. Using NX it is usable but still a bit lagging when using menus and the like, but a possibility.