I suspect you slightly under-appreciate how ubiquitous sugars are in nature. Glucose and its close relatives are everywhere in plants. Cellulose, the main building material of plants, is polymerized glucose. A ton of various substances of plant origin are all pre-built to interact with sugars, and may have trouble interacting nicely with severely different kinds of molecules.
Does Maillard actually do anything aside from the crust? Why couldn't we just put a tiny but of real sugar in the top few mm, by spraying sugar water or just sprinkling on wet batter or dough?
Seems like there are commercial sugar free stuff with an ok texture, but then again maybe I just haven't noticed because the taste of most artificial sweeteners is so bad that it masks it, and I only try them if I accidentally buy something with it...
With relation to baking and frying, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction works with sugars, and likely can't work adequately with something materially different.