sshfs does not check if a mountpoint exists before attempting a mount. It fails later, after the expensive part. $ sshfs 1.2.3.4:/something localdir user.3.4's password: fuse: bad mount point `localdir': No such file or directory It would be good if the existance of "localdir", the local mountpoint was checked before the network part began.
It seems fixed in the recent fuse.