The amount of times the "-3" scp flag saved me from waiting tens of minutes is non-negligeable. I'd say it's paramount to a number of premade scripts out there, so an "scp replacement" without it is bound to make me sad and probably break some stuff
From man scp:
-3 Copies between two remote hosts are transferred through the local
host. Without this option the data is copied directly between
the two remote hosts. Note that this option disables the
progress meter and selects batch mode for the second host, since
scp cannot ask for passwords or passphrases for both hosts.