a) Nobody doing this expects that it will increase the difficulty of cracking the server via SSH, or at least nobody I've talked to does it for this reason and

a) Nobody doing this expects that it will increase the difficulty of cracking the server via SSH, or at least nobody I've talked to does it for this reason and I certainly don't. b) Since when is the uid that started a process a form of authentication? c) Who cares what the default settings are for most SSH clients? It's trivial to put it in your config file and forget about it. d) Using port 443 for SSH is a legitimate use to get around firewalls/traffic shapers.