I rarely see Emacs freeze even with Tramp, but admittedly I rarely see broken connections. I think in that case VS Code will throw up a modal dialog telling you

I rarely see Emacs freeze even with Tramp, but admittedly I rarely see broken connections. I think in that case VS Code will throw up a modal dialog telling you to reload the window, and after reloading you have the option to sever the connection. For me the main problem with Tramp is the slowness - opening and saving files takes just a tiny bit too long. I'm sure VS Code's approach with a remote server can be faster.