dnsdist has a built-in cache that is 1) really fast 2) saves a lot of packets from being sent.
the recursor supports EDNS Client Subnet where it feeds part of the client IP address to authoritative servers, to get better answers
If the recursor is hidden behind dnsdist, dnsdist can be configured to send on part of the client IP address to the recursor. So ECS then gets used twice: once to the recursor, once to the authoritative server.
When this setup is enabled, the dnsdist cache contains packets with the ECS option on the question. This means the cache hitrate goes down tremendously, as it will only deliver 'hits' within the same /24 (say).
When ECS is enabled, most domains are still not ECS-variable. This means we have split up the cache into thousands of /24 shards for no good reason.