Come now, spider swarms are very good, they're pricey, true, but they still do a load of damage, they're survivable, and they explode. What's not to love?
And since the Steamborg cloud got obscuring, then he's basically carrying 'the fog' around with him and can effectively screen your entire crew from shooting whilst you advance up.
As far as Electrical fire is concerned, I've tried playing Ramos as an offensive caster, and it's tough, but with CA 8 and casting expert, he can do a lot of damage on pretty much anything except Perdita and Lilith. As someone said, with Ramos you need to construct your list with care - the Friekorps librarian is a huge help if you're playing this sort of Ramos, and he can still pop out a spider for free if you've got scrap, or an electrical creation if you haven't.
Oh, that's my one real problem with Ramos' book one minions, who decided that making the electrical creation unique was a good idea????
I'm kind of ranting here, and i don't mean to, I'm not saying that because he's not awful, he's top tier, or even close, he's not. He's great at mid-tier games, and he's really characterful, he's just been left behind a bit by the advances of rising powers, where Neverborn in particular came away with some crazy good minions.