Rclone as rsync for google drive

yup.

If your destination drive supports copy on write you could snapshot after sync, or use something like restic backup to build the same sort of thing on any old filesystem by running restic after sync.

Google Drive's ability to hold multiple files with the same name in a directory is trouble...
https://forum.rclone.org/t/fyi-sep-30-new-google-drive-shortcuts-and-folder-structure/15197