its not either/or for vi and sublime text… use both 
vi is perfect for quick edits or as you say remote edits, but whilst you can ‘navigate’ with it (via ctags etc)… its not as intuitive.
I resisted (since Ive used it for so long ;)) using anything other than vi (and various IDEs) for quite a while, but the great thing about sublime is not only is it extremely fast, but you can also run in on mac/windows/linux…
sure, on the PI/BBB I use vi for small edits, whilst doing my main edits on mac/linux and syncing via git/rsync.
oh, also remember you can push X displays to macOS (ssh -X) , so you can get X apps on the PI (or whatever) back to your mac. (best over a decent ethernet connection)
homebrew, I use sparingly… but its useful.
if your releasing projects, then sure could be an issue, but its best to test on (an old ) mac that has no dev software, or a vm.
vmware (or parallels), is the one bit of software id struggle to do without.