Not the best backcountry airplane, but not so bad either, the Ercoupe was one of the cheapest manufactured airplanes for years. That is how I got involved with a couple of them.
Fred Weick, who also helped design the Pawnee and Cherokee, wanted to build what Wolfgang Langewiesche called "the safety airplane." I think he did a pretty good job.
As far as the crosswind landing, the tricycle gear has three features that make it a true crosswind gear. The main gear has a 90 degree dogleg so that the main tires are behind the vertical gear structure mounted to the main spar. The rearward pointing gear structure is pretty flexible allowing the main tires to align with the runway (on touchdown) while the fuselage is still in a crab against the crosswind. The nose gear is at a less vertical angle than most trikes, sticking the nose tire well forward so that the rear of the tire touches down first on landing. This causes the nose wheel to align with the runway on touchdown. And finally, there are no real rudders, thus these other two features have to work. There is no effective side slip possible, even with Ercoupe models with rudder pedals.
Download my free "https://tinyurl.com/Safe-Maneuvering" e-book.