In my case, the answer is that editing files is only part of what I do
remotely. I keep an ssh window open on the remote host anyway; it
makes little sense to then use a *local* invocation of emacs to open a
remote file (with the corresponding overhead of transfer protocols,
mimencode and all that jazz).

Conceptually, too, it's cleaner if each of my (color-coded) text
windows is acting on a single host.

TRAMP sounds terrific, but it seems to be meant for a different sort
of workflow.

Silvio