Working in this way depends a lot on the stack you’re working with. For languages like Java or C#, where you can’t really work productively without an IDE, browser-based VSCode won’t cut it for most people. (I’d prefer a JetBrains IDE over VSCode too.) If your language doesn’t have a good remote debugging story, a remote-first stack won’t cut it.

This setup with a box under your desk doesn’t sound reasonable to me from a financial side either. According to your profile, you’re at Google, so I assume the hardware you use to access the box is a Chromebook. Sure, those are dirt cheap, but is a desktop + Chromebook combo really cheaper than one reasonably priced PC laptop with specs similar to the desktop?

I think I’m still happy with my beefy (spec-wise and kilogram-wise) laptop, having the ability to do everything directly on the machine (with no network round-trip for every operation), and still being able to do things if the VPN or the network goes down (with limitations, of course).