For quite some time now, if I ever needed to copy files between 2 machines, I would use ssh. A recent work-related project required that I ftp a directory of finished web pages to a web site. I summarized my experience of choosing and using a ftp client more powerful than the standard ftp command in an article I submitted to linux.com. The ftp client I used was ncftp, and my experience report is here.
You can also glean from the feedback to the article some alternative tools to investigate.
