Sorry this will come off as a super dumb question. I use ssh. I can login, edit, develop, run, basically anything. What am I missing? I thought VPNs are for 'admin' types that need access to a MS Excel file.
So your workflow would still be supported, and it would likely be more secure than exposing SSH traffic to the internet at large.
You're not missing anything and you have an extremely efficient and secure workflow that runs laps around any of this.
The tradeoff is you work in a terminal and understand SSH, etc., which is too much to ask of many non-technical users.
If you wanted to obfuscate your traffic or the direct path to your remote host was blocked for some reason, a VPN might get you there, but you'd still run SSH over that VPN and your workflow should remain unaltered (albeit, higher latency).
To address a sibling posts comment, you can enjoy this very same workflow without exposing your sshd to the global Internet by placing it behind a "knock" with knockd. Highly recommended.
Some VPN services also advertise additional privacy or anonymity, but trusting a stranger to not sell you out to their local government isn't usually a good idea.
From a business standpoint, you may want web and network services without exposing them to the wider internet. So they're only accessible on IPs in local subnets. VPNs will get you inside the wall.
It doesn't really matter whether you use ssh, RDP or whatever for remote system access but you should be aware of the capabilities of your methods and the strengths and weaknesses of them.
If your username and password are reasonably hard to guess, and ideally you use passwordless logins, and you keep your system regularly patched, and you definitely don't allow remote root logins, and you cycle your passwords say 90 days or so, then you should be fine. Do not bother changing port 22 to say 2222 or requiring 20+ char passwords. You may want to disable some of sshd's functionality if you don't use it but that might be a step too far.
Also, reset your sshd's keys occasionally and get them into your local ~/.ssh/known_hosts as soon as possible and read up and understand why ssh warns you when the keys and names look odd - that could save you a MitM attack from a bored techy in a hotel with wifi or whatever.
To sum up: a well handled sshd and client can be a fairly decent VPN and remote access solution. However, a separate VPN eg OpenVPN and then ssh over that is better and need not be inconvenient.
You pays your money .... 8)