If the damn things were as effective as described, and as cheap and easy to build as they allegedly are, they'd be used by terrorists far more often than they actually have--which is ZERO times.
You can't do it with conventional explosives like they claim?
The electronic-lethal footprint of an E-Bomb would be saturated with everything-lethal shrapnel.
You might as well use more explosives and shrapnel instead--it's cheaper.
Hmmmm...I followed up on one of the main papers -- link for a description of an electronic bomb is here. The thing is, from reading the article, I don't think they are really cheap to build -- only "relatively cheap" from the perspective of a major nation state. I don't think a bunch of ragheads who's technology level is being able to buy (not build) AK-47's and Semtek are going to be able to build one of these things. Note that the Islamofacists are not from technically literate or sophisticated cultures -- they are technology users, not technology developers.
The major powers have not developed any of these weapons beyond the R&D stage until recently, because their military use is limited. Main military equipment is constructed such that the electronics are shielded against EMP from nukes, thus they are protected against these weapons, and as all major powers (presumably) shield their electronics in front line weapon systems against EMP from nukes -- well, no reason to build these. But now we are starting to face off against more technologically inferior forces, we are going to see weapons like these deployed.
As to whether terrorists could develop these -- looks to me like some American high-schoolers in science lab could build these suckers under the instruction of some good teachers. Fortunately we face camel-jockeys who probably can't. And to your point -- they would rather just blow things up.