Admittedly, I have little experience to go off of, so I may be comparing it more to typical commuter rail than I should. My only real experience is travelling from my hometown in the Netherlands to Hamburg for a school field trip. I had the typical Deutsche Bahn experience of train delays (usually less than 30 minutes at least) and on the way there one train just wasn't running, so I had to take a detour and technically board the InterCity Express at the wrong station.

I also almost got stranded in the countryside at night because the last train of the day was bit by bit delayed by over an hour and I was panicking that it would be cancelled.