This might not be a popular opinion, but, go to the daily drivers page and tell me how many fans there are mechanical. The fleet I work on, the F450's, F550's have plastic mechanical fans that break often. But anything smaller than those, or comparable by other manufacturers, is typically an electric fan. High horse Corvette's, electric fans. Other super cars, electric fans. Most people can agree, that evolving technology makes things better, stronger, faster. Even though I hate electric vehicles, eventually, they will have their place. We're already seeing some of these things perform at various motorsports.
Sometimes, you can't fit a mechanical by design. My Suburban was designed specifically knowing I couldn't fit a mechanical in it. So I planned for a $200 Spal, high output, high CFM fan and wired it in such a way that is only comes on when the engine demands it. And, I believe it robs less horsepower through the alternator than a mechanical would through being driven by the water pump. Proper planning, proper design is what gets you where you need to be.
Typically, guessing at what would work, then throwing parts at something, will usually end in failure. Example, throwing a $50 electric fan at something, then condemning all electric fans as not being up to task 'cause your one time low budget choice fan didn't work, just ends up being an expensive lesson unlearned. If all these well paid OEM engineers can make these fans work for cars that are abused by teenage girls and commuters stuck in traffic, day in and day out, then we can surely make the application work on our old trucks that are more taken care of and treated better than these teenage girls and commuters.
If you goal or design is to have that mechanical fan because you don't like how the electrics sound, looks over functionality, then the mechanical fan is the one you should stick with. Make it work. The ultimate goal is to have that heat maker functional and not get stranded at the side of the road. One way or another, move that excess heat away from the source.
