I remote edit with ST. I choose File | Open to get the native Open dialog, type 'sftp://my.dev.server' and press Enter. Username and password logs me in. Then I navigate to the folder I want, and open a file or folder in ST.

I don't use VS Code. How do you do it there that is so much better?

Not sure if it matches your use case or not, but I use sshfs with Sublime Text and it's just as good as local editing.

Install xserver (also works on Mac and Windows) then ssh -X to the container. Start sublime on the container, and the gui will show up locally.

For one off things, it's easy enough to just use something like WinSCP or ssh + vim. Having to count on a remote environment having all of the X client software installed to do X forwarding and sublime text to boot is going to leave a lot of people disappointed. If subl supported remote editing out of the box the presence of any extra software beyond, say SSH, becomes something no one needs to care about. Bonus, your local install is already configured and setup exactly the way you like it.