"...However, because the site uses Cloudflare's Always Online™ technology you can continue to surf a snapshot of the site. We will keep checking in the background and, as soon as the site comes back, you will automatically be served the live version."

The gateway error page says I should be able to keep browsing e6 (although the use would be limited), but all it does it lock you on that error page, only letting you see what's already in your browser's cached history.

What I want to know is, is this how it's supposed to work? What's the point of having that screen shown instead of just letting me get plain a 5xx error page?

Cloudflare has several benefits such as ddos protection and asset caching(CSS, JavaScript, etc).
The always online technology doesn't really work well with dynamic content. It isn't possible to turn off and is just there as a convenience if it somehow happens to work.

It gives us clouds

It also lets you know, rather unambiguously, that the website is down and it isn't your internet provider or computer acting up in some fashion.

TheHuskyK9 said:
It gives us clouds

And flares.