Each relay stores only a small subset of followers, so the follower count cache on the relay is useless. The client needs each follower list to calculate the total, and when you click the ? to load followers from the relay and calculate it, it can be cached. Maybe you need to add a refresh button to click it when you need to get the latest count. This is maybe a terrible approach, but it will help
Discussion
I see what you’re saying on the relays. I do still think that caching on the relay may help for certain queries even if the client is pulling from multiple sources. Repeat queries tax relays.