… and I so much want to try it out, but is shocked to see that this stuff REQUIRES an internet connection. I live in a place where my connection is spotty, and it seems rather retarded and not smart, to need to have a internet connection in order to have simple bulbs working.
So question is : Will SmartThings ever be able to run locally only or should i just get the hub refunded?
If you need local, then Hubitat or Home Assistant are better options based on that criteria alone. Both probably have a steeper learning curve though.
I’m actually already using Home Assistant, but the main reason to get a SmartThings hub was to get all my zigbee devices onto a single hub instead of having them scattered around on different brand hubs
Just get it refunded. Smartthings is primarily a cloud-based system. You can’t even change the mode without access to the smartthings cloud.
Hubitat is a tiny company founded by some former smartthings power users which does operate entirely locally except for some third-party integrations like voice assistants. They have had a lot of success over the last two years, and even if the company went out of business, because it is not cloud-based whatever you already had set up would continue to function. so I would recommend taking a look at that.
It doesn’t have a nice app like smartthings does, but you can add the third-party SharpTools for that. 
There are other mostly local options as well, see the following thread for more discussion:
What is stopping you to use deConz or Zigbee2mqtt? 