It hardly handles SMB/CIFS connections correctly, and it's been fucked up for years.

Well.. you’ll have to install an fs driver for that. Exactly like in Linux. Or just use mountainduck

What makes you think that you need to install a driver on Linux to make SFTP mounts work in a file manager?

Every file manager I've used on Linux has support for SFTP out of the box. Not quite sure what you're talking about here.

This.

It's incredibly useful basic functionality that both Finder and explorer inexplicably lack. This alone makes Linux desktops far more friendly even for novice users who want to do something beyond sharing gifs on web forums.

SFTP.

Novice users.

Why would a novice user want SFTP built-in to their file manager?

SFTP is a protocol, and "novice users" are actually using it every day without realizing it.

Right... When and where they would use it without realizing it?

To move files between machines they own?

Novice users use flash drives or emails, they don't set up ssh servers. In fact, I've never seen a non-power user set up an ssh server except maybe if you count a consumer NAS (which usually show up as networked drives).

To that point, I'd be willing to bet money that any user that even has access to an ssh server they'd want to use either has the technical know how to set up those tools themselves, or has an IT person who can do so for them.

On the OSes that have SFTP capable shells ssh is enabled by default.

Other OSes lacking this is why everyone keeps their data in silos.

This still doesn't answer the question of why a novice would want SFTP.