> To provide an alternative. This is how I'm currently doing it. I'd love to hear what others think about it:

Different tools for different scales. Ansible exists as an improvement over ad-hoc shell scripts, simple/ad-hoc inventories, copy-pasting etc.

I think it's very unfair to all the contributors to highlight some security issues and say "I told you so", and propose a shell script as an alternative.

EDIT: I see your edits, acknowledging more complex environments...