according to MS selective sync was demanded because of the confusion caused by users thinking that a file was there where in fact it wasn’t.

another reason was programs crashing (mainly office) when a user tries to open a file that wasn’t available offline. again, similar problem and they all boil down to users not checking/knowing whether the file/folder is available offline or online-only.

this seems to me like a very unsubstantial reason to remove placeholders. why not educate users or at the very least introduce an option whether you want selective sync or placeholders.

selective sync was the number 1 requested OneDrive feature but, placeholders is now the number one requested feature among win10 previewers (~30K votes and more after win10 unrolls)

how do you think this will play out with MS?

this doesn’t make sense!!
if you modify/delete a file on one system that modification, being the latest, should be the one pushed to all your devices.
so onedrive should note that you deleted the file AFTER it was added/created previously in Montreal. therefore, the action it should take is deleting.

I work on 3 devices and never had such a problem with Onedrive

yes, turn the old PC without internet connection 🙂
Selective Sync is/was the number 1 requested feature

Eventually it just proved easier to turn my old one on without internet access, delete all the stuff in the folders, then connect and let OneDrive download the newer version.