See D21190. The ".gitattributes" approach fails when ".gitattributes" is in a subdirectory (or global). These are probably unusual cases, but at least one is known in the wild.
Instead:
- Restore the ":(attr:filter=lfs)" test, which seems to be the fastest accurate test available in modern Git.
- If the test fails, assume the repository is not LFS. This only impacts users running very old versions of Git.