Back when I was in college, some colleagues were webdesigners and had a hosting provider. They usually mounted via CIFS the remote directory and worked direct on the server. They said it was more convenient, as they could work anywhere without having to carry the websites around with them. In that case, a remote catastrophic event would wipe out their work too.
I had some clients that time too. Sometimes they asked me for quick patches and I usually connected to the provider and edited the file directly. It would be bad too...
Let me rsync those sites back here, just in case...