Hey ZitchDog, I'm sorry to hear you are having trouble with offline mode. We try hard to make things work offline. You probably already get this, but it isn't like a chat room in the sense that you need an open socket. The standard model is more like an app like Foursquare uses, where you refresh at specified times, but we do also let you cache network operations like saving data to run once the internet is available again.
So, unless there's something here that I don't understand, this specific case seems like something that should work. If you 'd like us to explain in more detail how you can get things to work, drop us a line at feedback@parse.com and I will help get the appropriate folks involved.
Also, all crankiness aside, aside from this issue Parse has been very nice to work with. I'm impressed at how easy it is to get a new project up and running.
So, unless there's something here that I don't understand, this specific case seems like something that should work. If you 'd like us to explain in more detail how you can get things to work, drop us a line at feedback@parse.com and I will help get the appropriate folks involved.