thanks,
MDF is indeed a strong offering, which seems to be working correrctly. a bit worrying is indeed the fact it is still in v1.0.
Right now I have the same fear as you about espressif dropping MDF support.
a first sign is that MDF is no longer advertised in the 'Solutions' while Matter and ...

seems promising feature and in theory it should work.

not all but many protocol are able to traverse NAT or even multiple NAT correctly without a need for application on the gateway side. This includes MQTT.

however any change in mesh structure also implies a change in the related IP network ...

dear,

there are now single-core ESP32 chips, including esp32 mini and esp32 solo.

looking at the MESH info pages
https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-mdf/en/latest/api-guides/general-notes.html?highlight=esp32
it explicitly states:
1) ESP-WIFI-MESH is specifically designed for ESP32 chips ...

dear all,

we'd hope to use MDF as a access layer for our project.
related to cloud infrastructure, we are planning to use AWS.

now the question comes to enables safely access to the cloud.

when mesh is not in use, the devices have a direct IP connection to AWS.
This means ioT devices are ...

This question is quite legitimate as it would help a lot.
in the ESP MESH OVERVIEW, https://www.espressif.com/en/products/sdks/esp-wifi-mesh/overview
there is actually an icon claiming that

ALL NODES GET IP CONNECTIVITY

but as we go through in more details,
devices need to communicate using ESP ...

this question is extremly relevant as the mdf creates a stable, self healing network.
however the only remaining single point of failure is the router and there should be a way to have a fallback router for un-interrupted connectivity.

how can it be provided?