I think this is why VPNs have such a poor reputation among the tehnically literate. We're used to security where every aspect is goverened by strong cryptograph

I think this is why VPNs have such a poor reputation among the tehnically literate. We're used to security where every aspect is goverened by strong cryptography that's difficult for state actors to break (e.g. SSH, TLS). There may be real cryptography over the wire, but there's nothing "strong" about the assumption you mentioned, or the disceplenary threats. If the threat model assumes that I can't extract a key from a laptop, or clone the behavior of some garbage Cisco client, that seems pretty broken to me. Commercial VPNs are mostly just shitty software for enforcing shitty corporate policy, disguised as a remote access tool.