so it's good practice to store key in non-default location and use ~/.ssh/config to point the path for each host?
This is just an awfully designed feature, is all.
Are you AI?
You can wildcard match hosts in ssh config. You generally have less than a dozen of keys and it's not that difficult to manage.
I have the setting to only send that specific host’s identity configured or else I DoS myself with this many keys trying to sign into a computer sitting next to me on my desk through ssh.
Like I can’t imagine complaining about adding 5 lines to a config file whenever you set up a new service to ssh onto. And you can effectively copy and paste 90% of those 5 short lines, just needing to edit the hostname and key file locations.