> Nevertheless, from an architecture view, it is better to have a collection of small, well-defined, reusable, unit-tested classes instead of having huge classes (as is generally the case throughout phpseclib). PHP4 does not have enough OOP features, for example lacks interfaces and does not come with autoloading, which in the end tends to lead people to put everything into a single class or file.

One of the mindsets I went into phpseclib development with was to reduce file system clutter. Trying to iteratively trace through code with dozens of files is harder than trying to trace through code with just a few. Although in the case of this feature, I also don't really see it being re-used. SFTP extends SSH2 - not SSH1, and SCP doesn't support stat'ing anyway.

idk I am more open to the php5 branch departing from the orig design considerations I had in place when initially developing master (and I also don't feel constrained by BC with the php5 version)