They decided to keep the code on the local machine, but the language server on the remote one. That seems like a recipe for inconsistency. You only get relevant results from your language server once your code has synced.
What Stripe’s configuration introduced is that they used a remote LS instead of the default local LS. Regardless, VS Code already defers LSP communication until it feels idle, and developers are used to that. So I wouldn’t expect a remote LS to significantly impact the level of inconsistency that developers already accept when using a local LS.
The choice to run dev environment far away from the files puts you in the position of needing to engineer your way past the inconsistency.
On the other hand, there was so much code that running everything on your own laptop was essentially out of the question. Doing a git pull after a long vacation locked up your dev box for a hot minute while it checked all the types—doing the same thing on your MacBook would be painful at best.