Sorry, my previous argument was not too clear:
I am *not* against (S)FTP support in TextMate. I'd love to have it, as some kind of extension/plugin or whatever.
But I strongly disagree with the reason given for it in your original mail. TM should not implement an SFTP plugin because every other editor has it. TM's doing things it's own way and I like it so far.
There was no preference window in the beginning, but back then it wasn't needed that badly. Now it has a lot of new features it did not have in the beginning and a preference window was added. Why? Not because every other editor has it, but simply because it would make things work easier in TextMate.
Jeroen.