Yes and that's the why you can't use multiple devices to access same environment. I highly recommend you to give linode + tmux + emacs/vim as an IDE.

I do the same, and love it. It really frees me to work anywhere, and instantly connect to an already-running dev-box just where I left it last time.

However, the only problem I have convincing my teammates is that they use TextMate/Sublime, and that's the only thing that seems to break this, where Vagrant is potentially easier (you can share a local folder).

I tried things like rsync and fuse over ssh, but they seem a bit sluggish or not-so-transparent. I wish there was some tool that would solve this.

That's a nonissue for anyone that only codes on one device, and it comes with dependence on a decent internet connection. When you have a decent sized team I imagine a vagrant box and git pull are probably a better option anyways. Plus vagrant is free.

I think Vagrant is the best VM management tool for laptop.