Why can't they just give SSH access into a chroot'd environment, or something like that?
I hate having to add more stuff to address needs which are already met by commonly used software. (SSH client)
The Linode CLI is to manage the VPS node, not to manage your server directly. With Linode CLI you can resize, shutdown, boot up, hard reset, and mirror your VPS. It's basically all the controls you would have from your VPS control panel, but in a CLI.
Unless i'm missing something, Linode is a VPS. They give you full SSH access to a VPS just like every other VPS provider does. This tool is just so you don't have to use the web UI to provision a new VPS Linode Server and can instead use the command line
Because one little mistake -- one error in their configuration, one sysadmin cockup at some point in the future, one bug in the software stack they use to provide such a thing -- and someone could get frightening amounts of access to the Linode network.
I guess that's why I use VPS instead of Linode.