Gnome has its own virtual file system driver, for crying out loud ! WTF does a desktop need a file system driver for ?!?

So that Gnome applications are portable wherever Gnome VFS exists, and gain the benefit of working with whatever GnomeVFS works with?

I like how my desktop works pretty well over SFTP/SMB/FTP (and I guess WebDAV but I've never used that) without me caring what protocol the bits are going over. Gnome is a framework in additon to being a desktop.