Some services run really good behind a reverse proxy on 443, but some others can really become an hassle… And sometimes just opening other ports would be easier than to try configuring everything to work through 443.
An example that comes to my mind is SSH, yeah you can use SSLH to forward requests coming from 443 to 22, but it’s so much easier to just leave 22 open…
Now, for SSH, if you have certificate authentication or a strong password, I think you can feel quite safe, but what about other random ports? What risks I’m exposing my server to if I open some of them when needed for a service? Is the effort of trying to pass everything through 443/80 worth it?
It just widens your attack surface for the ghost army of bots that roam the net knocking on ports, you don’t want to be someone else’s sap. I would imagine most home attacks fall into three categories: script kiddies just war driving, targeted attacks on someone specific, or just plain ol’ looking for sensitive docs for identity theft or something. Its still the net, man. If you leave your ass hanging out someone’s gonna bite it in a new way every time.