Is there a flag I can turn on during tdelibs/tdebase build that will make konqueror command line output much more verbose when loading the sftp-kio?? Something equivalent to setting a --debug flag?? That would help capture more information for the sftp-kio debug.. Does something like that exist?
Use kdebugdialog. Enable every check box and you'll have an xsession log that will fill quickly.
To restore your xsession log thereafter, delete $TDEHOME/share/config/kdebugrc.
Darrell