Updates to Files On-Demand on macOS

Syncing to an external drive (and leveraging that larger drive, keeping the large amounts of data separate from where the OS lives so you don't crash your system, etc.) is the entire point of using a tool like OneDrive for many of us.  Having duplicate copies in both the root directory and the external drive seems to literally be the worst of both worlds.  Unless this is fixed so we can sync to only the external drive this is no longer a viable solution for my company.  I understand that Microsoft is limited by the Mac OS constraints and APIs, but you are one of the largest technology companies in the world and should be able to figure this out (e.g. why can't you put links or metadata files in the root directory for each file that is then kept on the external drive? or just build your own solution outside of the Apple API so you aren't beholden to it?).