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"Could sshd have solved this?" The phrasings listed seem to bring in the other person's choice and thereby create an oppositional/contrastive/comparative dynamic in to the statements. I write this having struggled with this sort of thing.
“Did you consider using sshd?” “Would sshd have worked here?” “I’ve seen sshd used in cases like this in the past–was that an option?” Why didn’t you just use one of these phrases?
I sometimes start it with "I'm curious; why didn't you use sshd?" I think that does a decent job of clearing up your intentions. I also believe, as a general rule; don't use the word You. Compare "Why didn't you use sshd" and "Why was sshd selected for this".
You could also just bring it up generically, such as: “In the sprit of an FAQ question like ‘What about X?’ I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on how this approach compares to sshd?”
The revised phrasings are better, but if someone's spent "a week or a month or maybe years" on a problem, consider asking what they think are the tricky tradeoffs and so on and give them a minute or a few sentences or an email or whatever to tell you before you launch into anything about your idea.
Not for politeness, but because if they're knee-deep in the problem they probably learned something you don't already know about it. It may illuminate why your idea wouldn't've made sense before you ask. You may get another, better informed idea. You may still have the same idea but learn something on the way there. It's a gamble worth taking if possible.
And, sure, if there's no time for that kind of convo, there are ways to politely offer your intuition that X might have worked, and that can be a shortcut to finding at least one thing that wasn't in your mental model of the problem. But, if you think they understand the problem much more deeply than you do, offering them a more-or-less open-ended chance to give you a download of what they've learned is a smart move.
If the person considered sshd, this question will connect because it shows that you grok their problem solving process, assume they are at least as competent as you are, and you want to learn what surprises they encountered that neither of you would have realized beforehand. If they didn't consider sshd, this question doesn't seem to be likely to offend them since they will respond by inquiring why you think that was a potential solution and hopefully be prepared to learn.
"Why wouldn't sshd do the job here?" Take "you" out of it. The question is about the problem and the solution, not the person.
"What if we tried using sshd here?"
I think this would make it sound like you are on their side/on the same team, and that you are trying to help, not trying to mock them.
- tone of voice. Any of those can sound really snarky or very interested, depending on intonation.
- history of your interaction with that person. My colleagues (hopefully) know of my tendency to brainstorm out loud, and that I am quick to accept seeing limitations in my proposals. If you have an history of not saying much and not accepting criticism, the initial sentence will come across very differently.
Plus sometimes, the first idea of someone else _really is a good idea and was not considered_ . This happens quite a lot where I work, where people have very diverse backgrounds. Having people avoid saying "obvious" things is really dangerous in multidisciplinary teams.