I did consider that. But then a cursory look at the open issues proved that I don’t have the requisite knowledge, and resources (various platforms that it supports)

Though from quick skim of https://rclone.org/sftp/ it seems you have to configure each remote. With sshfs you don't need to do any configuration apart from ~/.ssh.

Until you need to write, at which point you run into a litany of quirks that stem from the fact that rclone is designed to work with fancy remote kv-stores and has no idea how to partial-update.

How is sshfs not easy? It's the simplest form of a remote mount.

Those combinations are far more complicated than using the same transport and firewall rules that you've already configured.

Production systems with sshfs mounts criss-crossing servers, rather than having proper centralised fileserver.

It’s not the fault of sshfs, but it attracts people who just creates the messy systems.