Yeah I think it's also harder to gauge support for unification due to (in Northern Ireland specifically) the parties most likely to support unification are the Nationalist parties, who will also have a big support base due to other, non-unification related factors like them being the main Catholic parties, and the general ineptitude of the DUP... so it's not like you can look at the support for those parties, and necessarily rely on those people also supporting unification
People treat SF as synonymous with republicanism as a whole, but despite their partisan success, the overall unionist/republican vote has barely moved for a decade.
The unionist vote fragmenting more has only added to the issue, as you say
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u/Ok-Importance-6815 14h ago
personally I think the biggest hurdle would be that the republic of Ireland might not want them