Yes, I agree, I was just giving an example of how an additional layer can help protect against automated attacks, even for highly-secure services like SSH. I a

Yes, I agree, I was just giving an example of how an additional layer can help protect against automated attacks, even for highly-secure services like SSH. I also agree that SSH is less likely to have flaws than most VPN software. But on a properly configured bastion host, by-passing the VPN would just put you in a position where you can attack SSH. You would still need to by-pass SSH to access production servers.